Darth Revan
by Ender Mahe
Summary: Where it all began. The life and history of Akima Mahe before she became a Jedi, war hero, and savior, before she became a Sith, traitor, and destroyer of worlds. The circumstances that shaped her, the morals that guided her, and the people that influenced her. And finally, the endless war that broke her. This is the story of Darth Revan.
1. Beginnings and Endings

**Darth Revan**

Chapter 1: Beginnings and Endings

Akima Mahe was filthy. Every inch of her, from her soft-soled boots, dark pants and tight, energy reflective combat armor up to her face and short-cropped black hair was covered in a layer of black, cold mud. On top of that she'd added a layer of twigs, loose leaves, and dirt from the forest floor. Still, it was hardly necessary. After all the crawling she'd done her original layer had been rubbed off and replaced by a brand new skin of smeared greenish-brown.

At the moment she lay just off to the side of the crest of a low hill. The hill was only a meter or so high, a low mound more than anything, that sat on the edge of the thick Onderon woods, just as the trees were thinning out. Backed by the shade, the low open fields stood in contrast, a vast flat expanse perfect for an army camp. Which was both why the camp was there and why she was watching it. It was yet another drill, true, but they were here to participate in joint exercises as a good-will gesture to the Onderon military (and a not particularly subtle show of force) in the Republic's extremely long-winded attempt to get the planet to join the Republic. But all of that was far beyond her concern.

Today she wanted to try something new. Or, depending on how you looked at it, something very old. Her fellow scouts from the recon division attached to the system were using standard belt-mounted stealth field generators. They were complicated, uncommon devices even in this day and age. They worked by using expensive, ultra-high quality omni-directional scanners which detected oncoming light. It then generated a field around the user which refracted that light, literally bouncing it around the user, creating a pocket of invisibility. The field wasn't perfect, however. The generators could grant perfect invisibility, but nobody had yet figured out a way to see out of that little pocket of perfect darkness. As such the engineers had to tone the field down to allow in enough light for adequate scouting purposes. That lower strength, however, led to an odd, if subtle, distortion around the user. That distortion, plus the specially developed scanners designed to detect such fields (if not exactly where they were) made reconnaissance a dangerous game of cat and mouse. Akima had one, of course, but unlike her fellows' it was off.

Another patrol from the main army, the opposing force for the exercise, came marching along the edge of the trees. They were cautious, as they'd all been warned about the dangerous wildlife in the heavy forests (and worse in the jungles closer to the equator), which kept them a safe distance from the trees. Akima wasn't worried – she was lucky, lucky enough that she actually had a reputation for it in her unit. And she had a feeling this was a lucky spot. The animals wouldn't bother her.

Thus far the patrol was acting exactly as she'd hoped. Knowing that the odd distortion of the stealth field was almost impossible to see with the naked eye while the user remained still, the soldiers were relying almost entirely upon their instruments. For Akima, however, there was no stealth field to detect, and covered in cold mud she gave off no more heat than the rest of the forest. The patrol passed on and still no sign of action at the base camp. The next foot patrol, if they continued their current pattern, wouldn't come by for another twenty minutes. Which, considering the last five hours had seen her lying in the exact same place in the exact same position, left her quite bored. Yet there was nothing for it but to crawl on and try not to pay attention to the menagerie of insects crawling all over her body.

* * *

_They were in their home, though it was more of a shack. It was raining, as it often was, and the leaky prefabricated roof once again proved inadequate to the task. Her father, a thin man approaching gaunt and slowly balding, staggered in through the door soaking wet and shivering, though not from the cold. Even as a 12 year old she recognized the blazing wrath of stimulants in his eyes. A crushing fear gripped her—she'd seen the other men in their small grimy factory town on the stims, but never, never her father. She'd cried, which had only brought her mother into the room. She couldn't remember the words, but she could never forget the screaming. Anger, screaming, crying, and thunder. Then the stims took over and her mother's screams changed from those of anger to pain._

* * *

The damp silence was shattered by shouting and the sound of blasters firing in the distance. By force of will she kept herself from moving even a centimeter while she took stock of the situation. The sun had lowered considerably in the bluish-green sky. Twilight was imminent, and real darkness would follow about an hour after that. The sound wasn't all that far away and echoed along the edge of the woods. Another scout being identified and chased off, if not captured. Perfect. They were filled with confidence in their equipment and sure this area was clean. Time to move. She did, however, leave a little something behind.

Her movement was not what a new recruit to the Reconnaissance Corp. might expect. She only moved a couple of inches at a time with long pauses between each smooth movement. The patrol might be out of sight, but the huge sensors at the center of camp were still watching. Still, they were toned down to avoid being triggered by the constant movement in the forest, which gave her some wiggle room. In its own way the motion was just as repetitive as lying there. There was no change of scenery to speak of, as her eyes were glued to the same empty view of the hundred meters to the camp filled with very low hills and billowing grass, blowing in the winds. It was beautiful, yes, but after five hours of staring . . .

* * *

_She woke instantly. She was completely and irrationally positive that something terrible was happening. There was no explanation in the room around her; her toy speeder that had been her brothers before he died lay exactly where she had left it, carefully lined up with the edge of her rough-cut desk of native wood. The goats they raised for milk and meat were quiet in their pen outside her window. Her four ragged but clean outfits were hung up in their order in the closet. Everything was quiet but her fear, not of hurt so much as of what she didn't understand, was so oppressive she could barely breathe. Quietly she slipped out of bed and stole into the living room. She'd learned to move quietly, and to hide patiently, to avoid being caught by dad in one of his drug rages, which was why her mother didn't hear her enter. Mother had her back to her, slumped over something on the ground. "Mom," she had whispered, instinctively understanding the need for quiet, "what are you doing?" She was leaned over a suitcase packed full with all of her meager clothes, and jumped slightly at her words. "Oh Akima, I'm sorry," she whispered, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," again and again as she hugged her close. "Don't go away mom please!" she had whispered back as fiercely as she dared. "I'm sorry mommy, I'll do better, I'll be a better little girl, just don't leave me!"_

_"I . . . I can't! The laws . . ." she'd tried to explain, but the technicalities of what passed for the law Akima didn't understand. Her mother was leaving her, and it must be her fault. That was all she knew. Mother gave Akima one last hug, tears she could no longer restrain streaming down her face, highlighting the purple and yellow bruises. "I'm sorry Akima, I just can't anymore, and I can't take you with me. I love you, never forget that I love you. I'll come back for you as soon as I can, I swear it."_

_When she'd left, the little flap shutting behind her and her small, battered suitcase, she'd run to her father's bed and shook him. "Daddy, daddy she's gone! Mommy's gone!" He didn't move. His eyes, still filled with the stim that had driven him to greater lengths than ever the preceding night, stared unblinking at the ceiling, dead to the world for many hours to come._

* * *

She'd reached the outer perimeter. It was well and truly dark now, save for the low-level lights which ran along the grated bottom of the trench. It was a loose perimeter, to say the least, mostly just the long double layered trench which at a pinch the soldiers could stream into and use as a defensive position. Normally such a labor-intensive measure wouldn't be bothered with, but the camp was supposed to be here for some time. Very, very slowly she inched herself just high enough to glance down into the trench. As expected of a peacetime camp, the trenches were not manned. Still, there were lookout towers periodically posted and, if they followed standard Republic procedure, a periodic sweep through the trenches themselves. She settled down to wait for the next patrol to pass and mentally reviewed the outline of the base itself.

It was a standard base as close to the manual as possible, both because the Commanding Officer, General Dex Kelrian, was a stickler for ceremony, and because he wanted to put on a show for the local officers of the Onderon military. Which was also the reason they had an oversized Regiment of upwards of 5,000 soldiers and a Brigadier General commanding instead of a Colonel. All of which meant that, once inside of the outer patrols and the trench perimeter, she had to choose either the road to one of the main gates at the points of the compass or a minefield and a wall with barbed-wire fence. Possibly even an electrically charged one, though the chances of anything like that actually being deployed in the field were close to nill. Past the wall would be the two troop transports at each gate.

The Republic Troop Transport Mark II was an ungainly, six legged walker designed to hold a platoon of 50 and carry them into active combat zones; in terms of the camp layout, they were mostly to intimidate as they were more heavily armored than armed. Still, those two heavy guns were nothing to sneer at. They belonged to the two armored infantry Companies attached to their Regiment. Past those would be the bivouac area where the prefabricated semi-permanent "tents" housed the officers and the enlisted soldiers. For the sake of the practice exercise, however, Reconnaissance had requested and (after a week of waiting) been approved to set up camp well outside the main republic base in order to allow for a more fair analysis of their reconnaissance abilities. Though it almost seemed a waste of effort when they set up bases exactly the same way every time. And, in the very center, stood the parade ground where troops could be marshaled up, which was overlooked by the elevated Command Tent, the nerve center of the massive base. Ideally, she would find a way to get information from there, though it was generally considered far too great a risk to even try. Failing that some sort of visual, or better yet, an audio feed of the parade ground could be almost as telling.

At last she spotted the patrol haphazardly making its way through the trenches, weapons holstered at their sides and joking as they went. A few seconds later their laughter faded into the distance. A full minute later, Akima allowed herself to move. She smoothly slipped over the lip of the trench and dropped lightly to her feet. The trench, dug as it was through the roots of the nearly meter-high grasses of the plains, were only a 1.5 meters deep. That left normal soldiers fairly exposed—for her all she had to do was hunch down to be completely covered. She knelt and as quietly as she could wiped off the loose debris of twigs and leaves; a loose leaf in the middle of the base was a small risk, but a risk nonetheless. Especially if it appeared out of thin air as she passed by. There was nothing she could do about the mud. As clean as she could get, she activated her Stealth Field Generator and headed towards the nearest lookout, with its attached comm center.

In theory every trooper's comm could, with the right priority attached, be picked up by the Command Center, though every soldier new the first thing any enemy army would do would be to jam their transmissions. Hence every 50 or 100 meters (depending on the size of the base) was, at the base of the lookout tower with its sensors, a stronger comm unit designed to punch through jamming signals. That way communication with the front and Command Center would continue seamlessly. And, in permanent bases, honest-to-goodness wired communications were installed and buried. It was to one of these comm bases that she headed.

Here, she took her first real risk. Her own comm, its narrow band reaching from her ear to her mouth, was on a different frequency from the rest of the army for the exercise (for obvious reasons), and was actually designed differently as well. While all of them were lightweight and small, most coms were either hand held or positioned well away from the face of the soldier in question so as to prevent irritation. For Recon, comfort was not even considered.

The bugs would take care of that.

Instead they actually mounted it right over the mouth so that she could activate it with the tip of her tongue, avoiding all the movement of bringing a hand up to the face. She activated it (with her hand this time; it wasn't the most sanitary move) with a quick double click, which sent a signal to the small droid she'd left behind at the forest edge. It was her own invention, though not particularly complicated. In fact, all it did was start rustling about as noisily as it could through the bushes and pulsing out heat in an odd pattern. She waited, huddled by the door of the Com Center, until she heard murmuring inside. She made her move.

As she'd bet, General Kelrian's insistence on shine and perfect order had led Colonel Thrakken Ennada, in charge of the army for this drill, to dress everything up and have it in perfect, silent, working order. The door slipped aside without even a whisper. Even simply observing from Recon Base Camp Commander Kelrian had proved to be an asset after all.

The inside of the Comm Center was dark, with only the dull light of computer displays and power readings to detract from the full layout of the surrounding area, complete with superimposed sensor readings. Behind the small room's two consoles sat two human soldiers, though it was too dark to make out anything else about them. Yet another gesture to the humano-centric Onderon military.

Both were tapping away at their computers and whispering into their coms, covering any sound Akima's soft boots made on the ceramacrete floor. Within a bare few seconds she'd placed her small audio-visual bug, stole a comlink, and slipped back out into the trench. After a quick glance around, she scrambled out of the trench and into the low plain grasses on her belly. With her new comlink synched in over her left ear and her stealth field once again deactivated she crept onwards at the painfully slow pace she'd used to make it to the trench. Inch after inch. After inch. After inch. After . . .

* * *

_Dad had been on the stims again, the worst bout he'd ever had. Akima had hidden from him for almost three solid days, only returning to sleep and feed Max and Shelia, the milk goats, and the others raised for slaughter. Now, huddled beneath her inadequate blanket, she shivered and tried to sleep. The sound of her door opening, however, jolted her back to wakefulness. It was dark enough to only make out his outline, but it was clear it had to be dad. She curled up as small as she could and shrunk back to the far corner of her bed. He saw, and seemed to sag a little bit. He stepped into the room with exaggerated slowness, as if trying to calm a wild animal. He didn't speak, just sat on the edge of her bed and put his head into his hands. They both sat there in silence, neither moving. After a few moments his shoulders started to spasm like mommy's used to when she was still here._

_She'd never seen her father cry._

_"Da..Daddy? Are you ok?" She crept towards him on the bed._

_"No, Akima, I'm not ok. I've . . . I've done so badly. I've failed your mother. I've failed you. I'm sorry, Akima, so sorry. I've been . . . sick. Will you help me get better?"_

_And so it started. National labor laws stated that nobody could work until they were at the earliest two years below the age of majority, set at 20. The local labor lobby got the age of majority dropped to 16 so that The Company could duck under it. This let Akima take a job at her fathers work, lying to tell them she was fourteen, and started work out on the factory floor assembling droids to help pay off the drug debts he'd accrued. It was a good choice—the workings of the machines came naturally to her. Within days she was doing better and faster work than most of the other employees._

_Within two months she was "promoted" to work with the more dangerous mass-produced fragmentation grenades and fragmentation mines. Her father was against it, but in the end with no other employers in town, what choice did they have? She proved just as able there as with the droids. And every night the two of them sat together on their lone couch and she held Dad in her arms while he shook with withdrawals._

* * *

The small sensor stalks of a sonic mine caught her attention and brought her back to the present. They were small, little more than twigs sticking out of the dirt, but she'd recognize them anywhere. Normally the army would employ the deadlier fragmentation mine, but for this deployment they had used the sonic mines in order to avoid accidentally killing their own scouts. They were painful, certainly, and would make you bleed from the nose and ears in addition to disorienting you, but ultimately were simply a development of the flash-bang grenade of days gone by. Still, their basic functions were almost identical to the mines she'd worked with. In order to avoid accidentally killing the holder, each mine's sensor stalk was designed to detect com frequencies as well as movement. The programmed "safe" frequency would disable the mine while within a certain range, allowing for allied soldiers to run right over a mine field so long as they didn't physically trigger the mine by stepping on it.

Still, the mines were far more effective en masse, and as such they weren't the most sophisticated of weapons. In fact, they were only capable of detecting safe frequencies within a fairly narrow range, and the Czerka mines the Republic favored were usually within an upper band . . . After a few moments of fiddling with her com a small green light illuminated the top of the sensor. Safe. Much easier than reaching through the emergency (and very narrow) deliberate hole in the sensor field to single-handedly attempt to deactivate the mine manually. Very dangerous. Standard practice for her fellow factory workers.

She crawled onwards, keeping entirely below the waving grass, and waded her way slowly towards the barbed-wire wall.

* * *

_He lasted nine months before he cracked. She came home to find an empty injection capsule on the living room floor. It didn't take her long to find him. In his bedroom he was curled up against the wall, arms wrapped around himself, slowly leaning backwards and forwards. The doorway was gouged with shattered glass still dripping with the remains of at least half the container. Blood streamed freely down his arm where he'd torn the needle out of him; he didn't seem aware of it. He muttered something, staring blankly at the far wall while he rocked back and forth. Caught in a sick fascination, she moved closer. "I can't I can't I can't I can't I can't I can't . . ." His bloodshot eyes stared right through her._

_In that moment it was too much. She curled in on herself, sat on the floor, and buried her face in her hands to stifle the tears. She didn't know how long she sat there, helpless. Her memory of those moments was hazy and tear-stained, to say the least. But at some point, her vigil was interrupted by a noise. She looked up, shocked even out of her despair. Her father, her rock of strength, and yes, fear, was crawling along the floor, licking at the last drops of drug he'd hurled from himself. Completely flat on the floor, destroyed, he lay at her feet desperately searching for any final bit of moisture. And in that moment of horror, of revulsion, he seemed to remember her and looked up into her eyes._

_Everything stood still._

_Her mind, her thoughts, even her heart it seemed, froze solid. If it had been self-hatred, fear, anger, anything, she could have dealt with it. But it was far worse. It was . . . acceptance. He was empty, and he accepted it. The fight was gone. She couldn't take it, and fled in anguish into the night._

_The stars were bright, a rare cloudless night. They twinkled down as they always did, completely unchanged. Unchangeable. She lowered her head and cried. Inside there was an animal cry, a momentary return to full awareness, and a single blaster shot. Then all was silence._

**Notes:** this is for RB23G, who expressed interest in the backstory for Revan I'd been working on. I apologize for the blocks of italics for segments in the past, but until you can change fonts like I originally had it written, I'm reduced to this. Let me know what you think. I have about 50 pages written so far, but unless there's interest I won't bother to upload it. And yes, there are tons of Jedi, lots of swashbuckling, and I even went out and bought a bunch of reference books to get the campaigns right, but that's all further along... if anyone out there is interested.


	2. Through the Darkness

Credit where it's due. _The Woman Warrior_ by Maxine Kingston, pgs. 30, 80-83.

Also big thanks to RB23G, for whom I am uploading more of what I have written. As he pointed out, I made the mistake of assuming that there would be a larger Recon group from which smaller divisions would be attached to other units. Apparently this is inaccurate, as the Republic military is such a disaster (as we'll see a looong time from now) run mostly by local militias, it seems unlikely that would be true. However, as this is the most hardcore chunk of military the Republic has (it's there to impress, after all) I assume they'll be working on the largest scale possible, and someone, somewhere has to have that big a chunk of Recon, right? Basically you caught me and that's the best excuse I could come up with :P

PS the next chapter is all ready to go. Drop me a note when you've read it and I'll post it.

Chapter 2: Through the Darkness

"Attention all units, this is Command; there is a priority alert." The report over her stolen comm jolted Akima back to reality. "The exercise is hereby terminated, and all Recon units have already been recalled. Patrols to High Alert frequency, weapons set maximum power, assume all approaching units are hostile. Authentication code 1a3ba6258. Say again, High Alert status."

Akima paused, thinking rapidly. She'd heard no such thing from her own superiors, which suggested either a gross breakdown in communications (most likely) or something more sinister. Either way, her situation had just gotten much more dangerous. She settled deeper into the grass and toggled her own com.

"Recon, this is Red 5."

"Go ahead Red 5."

"Confirm order for High Alert and weapons hot."

"What? On who's orders?"

"An all-units ping from Command."

Several minutes of silence passed before Recon responded. When it did it was clear even through the standard distortion that a new voice spoke.

"Red 5 this is General Kelrian. Those orders did not originate from me and we're getting all-back from Command's communications systems, which makes me believe they have indeed gone to high alert and emergency scramble on their coms. State your current status and location."

"30 meters from the base's inner perimeter with access to base communications, a visual on a com center, unseen and all clear."

"Hold position there Red 5—as of now you are our only asset on site. The others are here or captured. Please forward any updates."

"But sir, I can . . ."

"NO, Red 5. Hold position. Kelrian out."

Akima ground her teeth in frustration. Under any other circumstances she'd be happy—an officer finally noticed her, she'd done well and completed her assignment, everything for once was going well. But now she was being held back. She could do more, learn more, help the captured Recon soldiers. She could act. She _had_ to act. Still a general, a _general_ had ordered her. She had to believe he knew what he was doing. She had to. So she waited, unable to see anything, just waiting for orders from either com. She waited. And waited . . . and waited . . .

* * *

_She'd been a wreck, that much was clear in her memory. After a few hours her courage, assisted by the cold of the falling snow, had returned enough to get her back inside. The shock of it all knocked her out as soon as her head hit the pillow. She was too drained to do anything else._

_She awoke the next morning in a flash, an instantaneous transition. Dad is dead. The thought pulsed through her mind along with a whole host of emotions. She lay still in her tangle of blankets and sheets and stared up as the morning light slowly creeped across the ceiling._

_The first was shock, of course. Though this forgotten corner of the universe had opened Akima's eyes to many things, what with its proliferation of drugs and hard and under-payed labor, the fact of losing her father, her only remaining link to this miserable planet and life was still a shock._

_Her feelings shifted like a kaleidoscope. For moments she was angry, enraged at both her parents for leaving her alone, helpless. Then, with icy shock in the pit of her stomach she would watch again in her mind's eye as she turned away from her father and left him lying, broken, oblivious of the glass shards drawing blood from dozens of tiny cuts and fled into the night when he needed her most._

_Fear of the future, of the drug runners' enforcers, denial, rushing sadness, loneliness, and every other emotion rushed through. What it ended up being, however, was an odd sense of relief. So much uncertainty was taken away. No more drug induced rages would break things or override her decisions . . . it was awful, terrible to feel relief, but there it was. She could make her own decisions now._

_Finally, when the sunlight had crept all the way down the side wall and onto the floor she gave herself a shake and crawled out of bed to their joint refresher. Huge, puffy bags hung beneath her eyes, her face was greasy and her dark brown shoulder-length hair a disaster. It was a small, meaningless thing, really, but it was a problem she could do something about. She closed her eyes and luxuriated in the hot water of the shower, soaking it in and letting her mind wander wherever it would, though she shied away from anything of importance._

_At last when she was clean and her fingers started to get wrinkly she got out of the shower and put on her best, cleanest, pair of clothes—a loose, comfortable set of brown working pants and a tight undershirt with a looser white blouse over it. She sat down at the dining room table and started to think, to plan. It was too much, too big, to think about her father himself, she wasn't ready for that, but she could grasp around the edges, she could think about what she had to do, to get done. She was in a rough spot, but if she could figure out all the pieces, how they all fit together . . . her life was filled with missing gears but she had assets, parts to fit into the spaces if she could only figure out how and in which order. It was something she could control and it calmed her._

_And she needed calming. It was frightening to be thinking these grown up thoughts, making these big decisions. Since she'd started working she'd had to make big decisions much more frequently, of course, which kept it from being overwhelming, but she'd never been without an adult sounding board to kill her more outlandish ideas born of inexperience. She started adding up assets, how much they had in each account which she'd been in charge of in an effort to keep dad from losing it. It wasn't much. Certainly not enough to-_

_Max and Shelia let out startled cries and Akima froze, completely surprised, for an endless moment. Then the thin wooden wall behind her splintered under a violent blow, sending wood chips flying. She screamed and flailed, trying to make a break for it, but big, rough hands easily grabbed her and tossed her back into the middle of the room. She turned to look at the one who'd grabbed her, and was surprised to see that he was green. Completely green. It was a twi'lek, a humanoid species most remarkable for the two Lekku which emerged form the back of their skulls and, in this case, were wrapped protectively around the Twil'lek's neck. He spoke to her in a jabbering, high pitched language that meant nothing to her. Another voice responded and she turned to see the biggest human she'd ever seen, completely bald and covered in scars. That one spoke in Galactic Basic._

_"You said it Lurzo, she's got quality. Where's your dad, girl?"_

_Akima tried to get her shaking under control. She couldn't quite form words yet, and merely pointed towards the back room. Heavy wandered off to look while tentacles watched her, occasionally pawing at his blaster pistol._

_"Hey Lurzo! He's dead. You know the drill. Clean out the house and dump the girl with the slave traders."_

_They tied her up and threw her in a sack, where all was darkness._

* * *

It was pitch black. She could hardly see her hands in front of her by the pale light of the distant moon. The only other light in her little grass cave came from the transparent holographic display over her right eye generated by her com link with its very pale teal glow, which showed her the interior of the com center she'd bugged, and the occasional moment of terror when the spotlights they'd turned on at dusk swept over her for a moment. The comm display only illuminated an inch or two of dirt and grass roots immediately in front of her face. It had a built-in flashlight, which of course she couldn't use. She thought back over the last few moments and tried to pinpoint what had brought her attention back to the moment. Oddly, she couldn't remember any noise, smell, or anything else. It was just . . . a feeling. But her feelings were lucky.

Just then a loud mechanical whine echoed across the still plains, only to be cut off a second later. In the resulting quiet the sound of the soft breeze through the grass seemed especially loud. The whine returned, this time accompanied by a much lower pitched grumble-grumble-roar as a massive engine kicked to life. There was only one thing that could be: the mark II transports. A moment later and the six legged walkers' two massive side-mounted search lights flashed on and started waving back and forth across the plains. The stolen com jumped to life, breaking from the interminable all-clear signals, and ordered more soldiers to perimeter patrols. Something must have tipped them off –

Something dropped down beside her. She muffled her alarm, instead transferring all her surprise and fear into adrenaline fueled speed, and she had her undersized hold-out blaster off her hip and trained within a heartbeat.

"Easy now, I'm on your side. I'm here to find out what's going on and to clean up this mess." The speaker was too dark to make out and furthermore seemed to be swathed in some kind of heavy cloak. The voice was soft, definitely female, and calm. When Akima's blaster didn't lower, the woman let out a soft sigh. "I'm Elaine Trulena, the Jedi Diplomat assigned to the mission to negotiate the Onderonian entrance into the Republic." She eased her way up to lie beside Akima, who finally holstered her blaster. Face to face, in the low light of Akima's com display, they could faintly make out each others features.

Within the upraised hood, Akima saw that the Jedi was a human female, undoubtedly another political consideration for negotiating with the queen. She had strong features which belied her soft voice, with dark eyes and dark hair which seemed to be tied back. Any further detail was impossible to make out in the darkness. In her plain, rough brown robe and lying in the dirt she didn't exactly measure up to the rumors of fierce, implacable warriors and elegant, sophisticated statesmen that swept through the soldiers. She seemed almost . . . normal.

"You're . . . younger than I imagined for Kelrian's best scout." Akima merely arched an eyebrow and fingered her com to ask what she should do, only to be met with static. Even her stolen com had gone silent.

"Does the General know you're here?"

"What the General doesn't know could fill a star system. Let me worry about Kelrian. You should probably head back now, this is no place for someone your age with these alarms going."

Akima recoiled, anger stamped across her features. To be complimented and dismissed as helpless after being the only scout to make it this far, to help, was . . . the Jedi didn't seem to have noticed her reaction at all. She'd screwed up her forehead in thought and seemed to be looking far into the distance. "It's strange" she muttered to herself, "how could they have detected me? It's almost as if . . ."

She abruptly snapped back to life. "Go, girl. I'll deal with this myself." And with that she lowered her hood further over her face and awkwardly raised herself into a low crouch. Then, as if Akima's eyes were playing tricks on her, the Jedi seemed to fade into the background, to blur. Akima shook her head and refocused—with all her attention on the Jedi she could just make her out. Almost immediately she had to raise herself up onto her elbows to peek out over the grass and watch the Jedi's progress as she moved off into the night.

The Jedi moved in a straight line to the nearest gate and nobody else seemed to see her. Akima almost cried out when a spotlight swung to approach her from the back, but the instant before it illuminated her, as if warned by a sixth sense, she dropped flat into the grass until the light passed by. Moments later she slipped into the gate unseen by a lookout not two meters away from her.

Perhaps there was something to the magical powers attributed to the Jedi after all.

Akima dropped back prone and tried to take stock of her situation. The increased patrols were all along the perimeter and the spotlights only in the plains, which seemed to indicate that they expected trouble from outside, but nothing on the inside yet. Though undoubtedly they'd be running around like crazy in there, they probably weren't searching for intruders yet. She took stock of her equipment. She had her hold-out blaster with spare powerpack, her survival knife, a datapad, and her little droid somewhere out in the fields.

Not exactly encouraging when compared to the might of the entire Regiment. Still, something was certainly going on, and it was her job to find out. With that thought she started to get up to crawl slowly back to Recon base camp to forget the whole thing. This was all _way_ over her head. As she started to move, however, for the briefest fraction of a second she was looking into her fathers eyes and turning away again.

She muffled a curse, turned around to face the meandering search lights, and started her inchworm crawl once again.

* * *

_Akima watched as the new slave, still rebellious, was beaten until she could hardly crawl. It was the same with every new slave, still believing she was a daughter surrounded by slaves, not simply another number on the ledger. Akima knew the girls name, knew about her, but when she saw her she saw nothing, a blank, an emptiness. At first she had grown attached to the new girls and it hurt to see them broken, but she quickly ended her worry for them. A durasteel door shut inside her. She had learned long since that she could stop loving the goats that were raised for slaughter, and in an instant open that durasteel door again to start loving them the moment someone said 'this one is a pet.' It was not so hard as she would have thought to apply the same for people._

_The slave market was not what she would have expected._

_Among the sellers with their ropes, cages, and water tanks were the parents, the sellers of little girls. Sometimes it was just one man standing by the side of the road selling his daughters, who he pushed forward with greedy eyes and pulled back again with suspicious protectiveness. Those were the stupid ones, the ones without enough sense to leave the more favored girls at home. All the children had very still faces. But it was always the daughters for sale—the boys were too valuable._

_Then there were the parents, crying and clutching their daughters close, genuinely distressed enough that only half the time they watched the buyer out of the corner of their eyes for a reaction. They would try to keep you talking to find out what kind of mistress the buyer was to slaves. If they could just hear from the buyer's own mouth about a chair in the kitchen, they could tell each other in the years to come that their daughter was, even then, resting in the kitchen chair. The merciful buyers would try to drop in words about a garden, a sweet, feeble grandmother. The cruelest ones did too. The buyers for the spice mines, a death sentence, liked to laugh as they let slip at the last possible moment where their precious little girl was going, throwing to the wind the lies they'd told about easy work and a good atmosphere._

_Once past the outskirts and in the market proper were the professionals whose little girls stood neatly in a row and bowed together when a customer looked them over. They all had their jingles down pat. "How do you do, Sir?" sung in chorus. "How do you do, Madam?" "Let a little slave do your shopping for you, we've been taught to bargain. We've been taught to sew. We can cook, we can knit." Some of the dealers kept it simple and just had the children bow quietly. Others forced them to sing a happy nonsense songs about flowers._

_In the more organized groups there were girls barely able to toddle carrying infant slaves tied in slings to their backs. In the undisciplined groups the babies crawled into gutters and the older girls ignored them, trying to pretend they were special, that someone, some relative out there was going to save them. It kept them from giving in to the despair that hovered over them like a storm cloud, ready to strike at any moment._

_Eight-year-olds were about twenty credits. Five-year-olds were ten credits and up. Two-year-olds were about five credits. Babies were free, though in bad times many people gave older girls away to the slave dealers for nothing. Just another mouth to feed, a liability. You know the sayings; raising a girl is just paying for somebody else's whore._

_"Open your mouth." Akima gradually broke free of her daze long enough to realize that there was a woman staring at her. This normally would have given her pause, made her shy or embarrassed, or something, but now . . . She was just so tired. She couldn't summon the emotions. Listlessly she obeyed as she noted that the woman lacked the tattoos of a slave allowed out of the home, and that her bruises were faint—just a husband, not a slave master. She was looking to buy. The woman examined her teeth carefully, glaring at them as if to drag some flaw out into the light. The buyer pulled down her eyelids to check for anemia. She picked up Akima's wrist and took her pulse._

_"Fifty credits for the lovely young woman." Akima didn't even twitch as her owner materialized out of nowhere to haggle for her fate. "Chah, you call this a woman? She's not more than a child, and a weak one at that. Why, I'd bet she hasn't done a day of hard work in her life, not a useful skill to be had!" Her owner hissed in her ear, "Tell her girl, tell her!" Vaugely Akima recalled working in the factory for long hours over many months, but the memory was distant and fleeting, a moment of life in a desert of emptiness, and she couldn't summon the energy to grab ahold of it. "Ha, told you, you lying cheat!" With a harrumph that managed to say I-told-you-so remarkably loudly, the woman marched off towards the other buyers._

_The moment she was out of sight he owner whirled on her with a vicious grimace. He backhanded her so hard she crumpled to the floor, but she was buried so far deep within herself that she barely felt the blow. "Pathetic. That bitch was right after all, you're ever more useless than I thought. I'm done with you. You're on the next transport to the spice mines, girl."_

_Time seem to stretch. There were long periods Akima couldn't quite recall, with only the occasional moment of awareness. It was like sleeping while awake, only once in a while waking up to realize where she was. It was later, though how many hours, how many days, she was unsure. She was in line, her her ankle chained to a vast line of slaves. What had brought her back from her empty place? A sound, there it was again. The whine of repulsorlifts test firing. Akima raised her head and saw the biggest vehicle she'd ever seen in her life. It was an enormous, cavernous cargo starship, and the endless lines of slaves were being marched slowly into its belly. For a brief moment she felt something the stirrings of emotion, the long-gone days when she'd daydream about flying off on adventures, but the crack of a whip across her shoulders brought her back to reality with a soft cry of pain._

_"Wait." The line stopped. The whips kept prowling, however. Nothing could stop that. "Those two, there. The human and the Togruta, bring them to me." Akima had their ankle iron detached from the main line with the alien and together they were hauled before a repulsorlift platform which hovered two meters in the air overlooking the mass of marching flesh, its wash blowing the grass out to tickle the slaves' toes. The platform was shaded and blocked by a white veil as their owner anonymously surveyed its possessions walk to their fate, its blasters watching and guarding such a large investment. Aside from the snipers posted on the platforms corners, the only visible figure was a silver humanoid protocol droid. A deep throaty rumble emerged from the shaded platform, translated a half-beat later by the droid in its tinny voice. "These two are too good for the mines—I can make them into something far more valuable. Take them to my compound."_

_Then they gave her a gift; the number 2437. It was her 14th birthday, after all._


	3. And Into the Light

Chapter 3: And Into the Light

_The overwhelming impression of the compound was of blank white. The rooms were white, the floors were white, the furniture was white. That was 2437's first impression. The second was loneliness. Since arriving hours ago she had been completely isolated. It was a relief. Without the threat of immediate pain she could almost start to pull out of her shell enough to be interested in her surroundings._

_One of the white walls illuminated with an image of a droid. "Hello, and welcome to his automated learning center. You will be given a full, accelerated and customized education, including periodic examinations, through this system. Please, sit at your desk and follow instructions as directed, or there will be consequences to your well-being." 2437 did as she was told, and as promised, a lecture began to play on the basics of arithmetic. The lectures went on and on and on, interrupted only by the arrival of food though a slot in the wall. 2437's stomach growled as she saw real, cooked food for the first time in . . . in she couldn't remember how long. She devoured it with more energy than she'd shown in weeks, until the chastisement of her droid tutor slowed her down. All too quickly the food was gone and the lecture started up again. She didn't even remember falling asleep on the bed, (a real one!) as the day finally came to a close._

_Morning came with the buzz of an alarm through her white room. Suddenly she was swarmed by droids that stripped off her clothing, bundled her into the shower, and scrubbed her all over. She was still on half-conscious when they hauled her out and applied all sorts of creams and powders she'd never even heard of, then just as quickly as they'd come they disappeared. Once again she was alone with the droid tutor, and the the lectures started again._

_Each day quickly blurred into the next with endless hours of tutoring. Languages, the grammar and accent of aristocratic Basic, Huttese and Twi'lek, were taught right along with application of make-up and dancing. Economics and Politics taught between reading body language and seduction. Everything a rich core-worlder would want from a companion—the benefits of intelligent conversation and social company with all the private advantages of a slave. Occasionally the routine would be broken up and 2437 would be moved into another, larger examination room with one-way viewing screens and commanded via speaker to dance, to speak, to strip._

_They never hit #2437, which was something. Noncompliance or failure in the examinations was met with complete isolation, even from the never-ending instructional holos. Especially from food. After a period of complete silence they would be returned to schedule. Each concurrent infraction lengthened the isolation. Life was stasis. Yet 2437 grew and began to develop physically. The slave's examination results improved. The bids went up. Yet no sale was made—there was more potential yet untapped. The slave seemed willing enough, it didn't rebel after a handful of isolation periods. Couldn't rebel, really, anyways. Powered locks on every door with no access to anything save the day's clothes delivered by droid through the wall into a single drawer, beneath a single mirror, saw to that. But the clock was ticking, however little daily life might feel it, before age started dropping the bids, not raising them. The final stage, success or failure, was at hand._

It was do-or-die time now. At long last she'd made it to the gate. It wasn't impressive on first sight. It was more of a roadblock, an impediment to vehicles, than anything else. It emerged from a pit in the ground and extended upwards about two meters, enough to make climbing it tricky and to block most heavy repulsorlift-based vehicles. It wouldn't stop anything heavier than a light speeder gunship, but if something heavier got that close unimpeded it would have more than enough firepower to simply blow the thing away.

What she really needed was a gap in the two gate-guards attention, right at the same moment as the guards up in the nearest watchtowers were looking away. Not easy, by any stretch. Which was also why she'd lain there, head raised just over the grass, for over an hour. Dawn was yet a ways off, but it was definitely getting lighter, which made things worse for her. If there was anything she'd learned, however, it was how to be patient. Mentally she went back to her white box, where she could spend days, years, in contemplation. It had been a choice between learning to be patient or going insane. The moment would come, it would come, but if only she waited and watched.

_It seemed that all she ever did was wait for the next educational video to watch. She'd been in this white room for nearly two months now, and as boring as they were, they were the only thing that changed when every day was same as the one before, the same as the next. So, in an odd way, even though she was being forced to learn, she looked forward to it as the most interesting part of her day. But today was different._

_Without any warning, a message flashed across the holo display where 2437 was watching a lecture on trade routes. "In 10 minutes a human male will enter the room. Entertain him, but do not sleep with him. Failure will not be tolerated." It took the slave a few moments for this unexpected interruption to penetrate. The slave didn't panic, however. First it glanced up at one of the hidden cameras in the room, which it liked to think of as the eyes of its owner. 2437 had located all of the hidden cameras and microphones out of boredom long since. Then it paced to the mirror and took in its appearance._

_The childish face had matured somewhat, though it hadn't reached full adulthood. Most of the child fat had left the cheeks, kept perfectly without blemish by a strict control of environment, diet, and occasionally medical treatment. The perfect time for a sale. Old enough for the conquest to mean something, but young enough to make older buyers feel primitive feelings of success in "attracting" a younger mate. The slave had been taught as much, and had better take advantage of everything it had learned if it was to have success. 2437 cast a critical eye over the clothing it had been given for the day. A flowing white skirt, sheer, but not transparent, which tightened as it came up the waist. To top it off was a flattering white blouse, tight enough to tease, but not enough to make it look intentional or over the top. Tease with the top, but conceal with the bottom. The straight white was for purity, of course, but it wouldn't look good with the whole room white as well._

_A buzzer sounded and everything in the room changed. The floor and walls suddenly became a soothing tan, complemented by the formal table and chairs which now appeared to be natural wood with a protective clear sheen over it. Her couch was still white, as well as the ceiling, making for a calm feel, which was anything but what the slave felt, being completely thrown off guard. Another test? Sections of the wall had even turned transparent to reveal miniature waterfalls of all things! The slaves attention was abruptly brought back to the task at hand by the sound of approaching footsteps. All that was left was to quickly assure that the deep black hair fell straight to the shoulders and position itself at the couch._

_The man was angry, that much was apparent the moment he strode into the room. The slave eyed him quickly, trying to get as much information as possible while the man paused to take in the room. He was fairly young, still in his early thirties, with expensive clothes he didn't wear well. New money, probably, which would explain his presence here looking at slave companions. His eyes met hers, only to flash with annoyance. "You dare look at me, the eminent Lord of House Dallren, girl?" The slave dropped her eyes to his feet. "That's better. I was told there were beautiful, intelligent girls here who knew their place." He sneered. "We'll see." He stepped towards the chair at the head of the table and paused to glance at her, an eyebrow raised. The slave took the hint and calmly walked over to pull out his chair for him, which he gracelessly slouched into. After resuming her own place there was a moment of silence, slowly extending._

_The slave gave conversation a shot. "My Lord, I have heard of House Dallren. It must be a great responsibility to rule over it." A rather transparent appeal to the ego, but she hadn't exactly had time prepare for this little encounter. Despite the clumsiness, the Lord's eyes lit up a bit. "My responsibilities are many and great, I assure you, more than you could possibly understand. In simple terms, I am in charge of the committee to oversee the rates of exchange charged by laborers over the entire continent of..."_

_As the slave had hoped. Like most politicians, talking about himself was a favorite topic. "...In short, I report on the beneficiality of our economy to his excellency the king himself!" The slave barely repressed a twitch. Beneficiality? Then she noticed the hands clasped firmly in front of him. They were calloused and covered in small scars, much as the slave's used to be before receiving more of the same treatment applied to its face. A worker, then, promoted to the nobility, and in charge of former fellow-workers, evidently. That would explain the demand for respect and the over-active vocabulary. In an odd sense, they were in much the same boat. They were both from the bottom, trying to feel their way through what they'd been told upper society was like. And, if his tense posture was anything to judge by, uncomfortable in the attempt._

_With that realization the slave had him. A few self-deprecating comments about the politics, claiming a lack of understanding, and some questions about the underlings he was in charge of, and within a few minutes he was at his ease, telling old workers tales and describing the finer aspects of the local marketplace where he lived. After that all that was required was to laugh at all the right spots, give a couple of shy-but-interested looks, and nod encouragingly. Soon enough the buzzer rang again. "My Lord" came a voice over the speaker "thank you for your visit."_

_Hint enough. He got to his feet, gave the slave one last appreciative look over, and with a start seemed to remember himself. He harrumphed a few times and gazed about imperiously again, while the slave returned to staring at the floor. The interview was over. The room faded back to white. The holo display reactivated itself. The slave turned back to it and returned to waiting._

_And waiting._

Finally the moment came. She slid out of her mental white box and fully came to herself again and she smiled as she felt her luck. The current shift was nearly done, and everyone was tired from the stress of a full-alert, with the inevitable rumor-mongering caused by strange orders with no explanation. The left gate-guard had crossed the path to talk to his friend, and both were looking out along the trail. The tower guards were covering their responsibility of checking further afield, and were starting to nod off. Adrenaline surged through Akima as she started to move her stiff limbs. Her focus sharpened, her thinking seemed to accelerate; this was it. It was time for the next shift to emerge, and her time window would be razor thin, if it worked at all. Still, she remembered the look in her father's eyes and ground her teeth. She had to act.

The moment the gate started to lower and drew the lower guards' eyes she felt her luck crescendo and she slid out of cover, keeping as low as she could, and eased out into the rough pounded path where the gate guards had endlessly paced. She took two big strides until she was almost at the gate itself before triggering her stealth unit. She fazed out of existence and the alarms fazed in. A second later, perhaps two, she had slid behind some crates stacked on the back-side of the fence, stealth field deactivated. The moment of truth. _Come on, come on, come on, it was a mistake, a faulty trigger. Turn it off, turn it off, turn it off . . ._ Her luck held strong and the guards turned it off, and no new orders came in over her com unit. She'd made it. This was her luckiest break yet. She settled back among the crates to wait for the memory of the alarm to fade away and everything to settle down before heading out.

_A procession of men, and occasionally women, were paraded before her over the following year and a half. Some, like Lord Dallren, were new to power and merely sought the trappings. Some wanted conversation, some to be fawned over, some baser gratifications. The voice from the wall protected the slave from any real physical advances, but there was no mistaking its interest for the slave. It was protecting its investment, nothing more. As was the case this time._

_A youngish man strode in with the barest of warnings from the master's voice, which for once had an emotional inflection in it; irritation. 2437 had only a moment to size up the man, and what it saw wasn't good. With practice (and a powerful source of "motivation") the slave was by now rather accomplished at reading people, and all that practice and training told 2437 that this was not a good man._

_His strides were long and assured, his eye didn't see so much as appraise, and his suit was expensive and dirty. That was all that could be taken in before he had marched straight up to her and reached out. He hooked his left arm around her waist and roughly pulled her onto him, pressing their bodies together while his right hand ran up and down her skin. 2437 resisted, but not very strongly as the shock hadn't quite worn off. Nothing like this had happened before. Oh, she'd been prodded, "accidentally" groped, and one particularly persistent woman had to be warned off by the voice, but nothing like this. He started forcing her towards the bed, his eyes lit up with lust._

_"Governor Ornil, please desist. You must first purchase the girl." Ornil didn't stop or take his eyes off the slave as he answered, his breath hot against her face, "Consider her bought, then." They'd reached the bed, and 2437 had no choice but to fall backwards onto it. Ornil spread her arms, pressing them helplessly against the covers with his superior strength as he leaned into her._

_"Governor Ornil, desist immediately or you will be forcibly removed." The voice didn't give Ornil pause, but the heavy mechanical clank of two squat guard droids entering the room did. Their stun sticks were already humming with power. Slowly, so slowly, Ornil eased off of her. The slave shuddered and gasped, quickly curling up on the bed in a quivering mass. She didn't watch as the droids escorted the governor away, tried to not to listen as the sound of his angry haggling faded away._

_The slave lay there for a long time. With time the tears ceased, the choking sobs were silenced, and the shudders stilled. Still, it lay there. At last, it arose and looked into the mirror. Its hair was a tangled mess, clingy blouse wrinkled and hanging off a shoulder. But its eyes were hard. I am no one's slave. No one will ever touch me like that again, though it cost me my life. Akima Mahe would not go down without a fight. She straightened her shirt, pulled her skirt back where it had ridden up, and slowly started combing her hair in front of the mirror. As she brushed and brushed and brushed it smooth her mind was busy. For a long time she had passively stayed in this room, far more beautiful and luxurious than anything she'd previously had, as much because she had nowhere else to go as anything else. Just as with her father, she had hesitated before acting**. **Never again. No, from now on, she would act, she would choose._

Akima was going in, whether the Jedi liked it or not. She adopted her I'm-not-important walk, head dipped a little, semi-slouched with smallish strides, and headed purposefully towards the orderly maze of tents. Troopers ran by her right and left, but in their rush they saw nothing but another soldier, irritated at the alert but doing some task or other. The dim pre-dawn light hid the mud, but wouldn't for long. _Just walk on by, walk on by, just doing my job_. And they did. Her luck held strong as she made her way through the camp's organized chaos towards the prison block in the hope of finding her fellow recon scouts.

That didn't keep her from casting surreptitious glances around her, and paying careful attention to everything that happened. It helped that she was intimately familiar with what "normal" looked like. She was instantly aware that this was no test fire of the Walker's engines; they were planning on going somewhere. She knew that these were no ordinary soldier drill's; they were really being called to action stations with the expectation of trouble.

She headed towards the women's dormitory. It was the middle of a shift, so it was a small risk as nobody was supposed to be heading in there, but the benefit was that, at this early hour, it was unlikely anyone _not_ on shift would be awake yet. She made it inside without incident and quickly eyeballed the sleeping forms until she found one of roughly her own height. As quietly as she could she went through the woman's drawer hunting for a clean uniform that wouldn't get her picked up in an instant once the sun was up.

_Akima was roused by a group of three droids which brought in a new outfit and informed her that she would be leaving. She held up the white fabric to the light and winced. It was not an encouraging sign. To begin with, there wasn't much of it. To make it worse, what there was was borderline transparent, a sort of filmy gauze. Ornil didn't need any encouragement as it was; this would make him lose all control. Still, with all these droids around . . . there wasn't a whole lot she could do. The droids stepped out, but she didn't hear them go further than the door. She would have to wait for her chance. She fell to sleep still waiting._

_She wasn't sure how long it had been when the droids shook her awake. The first thing she noticed was that her face felt funny. The droids allowed her to step over to the mirror for a moment, where she stared at her face in shock. Her face had been tattooed while she slept. There were two, one above her right eye, another below her left, made of long smooth lines broken up by jagged ends. Another, smaller set under her right eye consisted of circles in a curve from her cheek to just below her eye. Her teaching was clear: slave marks. She didn't have much time to consider it before the droids dragged her upright and forced her to march._

_And, just like that, she walked out of the room that had been her world for two years. She didn't hesitate. She'd left her only true home forever, long ago. The droids escorted her wordlessly, their heavy clanking the only noise throughout the facility. Despite all her practice with stressful situations, her heart rate rose and she started to sweat. What if he was there? What if he didn't wait until she had a chance to escape? These thoughts ran through her head like wildfire as she was marched down yet another corridor. Already she was mostly lost, but had the distinct impression that she'd never been to this part of the facility before._

_And there it was. The end, a break in the endless white. Her eyes instantly screwed shut against the intensity of the natural sunlight which she hadn't seen in so long. The droids pushed her forwards and she half-walked half-stumbled forward. Eventually she hit a step and fell, only to be caught by the droids. Their hard metal was freezing cold against her mostly bare skin as they lifted her up and unceremoniously dumped her into . . . her hands scrambled to make sense of her new surroundings where her eyes weren't working. Into some sort of open-topped crate, she concluded._

_"Stay down if you know what's good for you." Akima froze. It was Ornil's voice. She didn't move, trying to come up with some way to surprise him, only to be caught off guard when she felt the entire crate heave itself into the air and accelerate away. It was long, tense moments before she could force her eyes even a little open. It immediately became clear what had happened. She'd been shoved into the back of a speeder._

_Ahead of her she could barely make out the front seats, with a dark blur that must have been Ornil in the driver's seat. The speeder continued in a straight line, uninterrupted. That meant either the landing field, or somewhere she'd never been before. Either way, who knew how much time she would have before . . . she didn't let herself finish the thought. Her training served her well, however. She had enough of a grip on herself to think properly, to reason even now despite the pulse pounding in her ears and her short, rapid pants for air. She pulled her gaze back down into the speeder and immediately had an easier time seeing. There was nothing back here now, only her already mutilated scraps of clothing and the engine port . . . there was a chance there._

_She jerked it open, wincing as the metal cut her hands made ridiculously soft from many months of doing nothing. The roar of the speeder covered any sounds she made. At first the maze of wires and hydraulic cables seemed to bulge everywhere, an impossible tangle, but the memories of long and hard shifts in the factory came back and she quickly got down to the business of identifying parts. As she identified the flight stabilizers, the repulsorlift feed from the main engine, the hydraulics which led from the steering wheel to the rear repulsorlift field which pushed the speeder forward, and the hydraulic cable which switched polarity in the rear repulsorlift field to slow the craft she started to calm down. Her breathing eased, her thoughts focused._

_This was something she knew, that she had control of. She had options. She considered them for a moment, then peeked her head up once again to look at her surroundings. The light was still harsh, but she could see a little more clearly. They had slowed without her noticing it. They were in a tenement town now, floating high enough to creep over the low, tightly packed huts. Might as well be now. At least there should be plenty of places to hide down there._

_She reached a hand down into the engine port slipping through the maze of cables, made easier by the blood from her fingers. All it should take is a little bit . . . of . . . this! She winced as a dull electrical pulse arced through her fingers, but the impact was immediate. She'd jammed the throttle open, and the speeder started to accelerate, a little ponderously at their height. Ornil sat stunned for a second before jerking around to look at Akima. That extra second, that little bit of disbelief that she could actually sabotage the speeder, was all the time she needed to rip out the polarity feed which would allow the speeder to reverse or slow._

_By the time his arms started reaching for her, an enraged scowl stretched across his face, she had already jumped. Frankly, she didn't care where she landed, or even if she survived it._

_She was free._

_The air tore at her already ragged dress, flapping it violently. She curled up as best she could._

_She hit something hard, twisted, kept falling. Her side hurt, she flipped over, spinning, which way was up, where-_

_Blackness._

_Then pain._

_That was all that existed, the pain. And touch. Yes, she could feel too. She focused on it, anything that wasn't pain. She felt rough, wooden floor beneath her fingers, her thighs, her cheek. The wood grain was unsanded. She felt the whispers of silk, a hint of softness among the slivers which stabbed her all over._

_She could hear. It was soft at first, little pricks of sound, calls? Shouts . . . and sirens. Why were there sirens? Where was she?_

_The images returned, flashes of light behind closed eyelids. Her father laughing. Her mother crying. Her father in the drug rage. The devastation in his eyes as she turned away. The bounty hunters. The white room. The aircar. The jump._

_Emotion, distant and foggy, gathered strength like a storm on the horizon, swiftly approaching. Confusion. Fear. Panic._

_She breathed in._

_What was she going to do? Would they find her? Take her back? The thoughts floated in her mind, flitting in and out like leaves in the storm. But beneath it all was the rising, panicky question._

_Who am I?_

_For an endless moment she strove violently against the immovable gray wall within, then the wall vanished and her identity, her name, came rushing back. Akima._

_She breathed out._

_Time to move._

_She pushed herself up to her hands and knees, but a wave of pain from her left side drove her back to her forearms with a groan. Her palms were a combination of rough splinters and slippery blood._

_Get up. Have to get up._

_With a monumental effort she pushed herself up until she squatted on her knees. She breathed in labored gasps and her vision swirled. She winced and braced her hands on her thighs to keep herself from falling over, smearing them in blood. She swore quietly. Somehow that little rebellion gave her strength._

_Great. Okay, where am I?_

_The room was not fancy and the shattered roof didn't improve anything. The wooden floor was unadorned, the furniture nothing more than a stool and bed covered in a single poor blanket. A door._

_She staggered to her feet, stumbled, and hit the wall with her shoulder. Her left should._

_She gasped, and half-curled in on herself. Which brought her to look down at herself with a wince that had nothing to do with her fall. Her dress, which even when whole skirted immodesty, had definitely crossed the line. Permanently._

_She staggered to the bed using the wall for support and snatched up the blanket, wrapping it around herself. It was rough, an old traditional wool which spoke volumes about just how poor this neighborhood was. It scratched and smeared something warm across her back. Not good._

_She could feel herself slipping into shock and clung to her training like a lifeline. And, at the end of the day, her training boiled down to how to do one thing; think. Everything else, all the information she'd been taught, meant nothing if she didn't know when to use it._

_Think. Okay. Deep breath. I have to get out of here or they'll find me. I have to keep moving._

Akima kept moving, never staying in any one spot for long. She strode purposefully onwards, changing directions when nobody was looking, but headed gradually towards where The Book said to place prisoners in camp.

It was a prefab unit, light enough to be taken apart and hauled along on one of the walkers, but sturdier than anything else in the camp as it had to hold prisoners. Akima walked right past it and scoped it out. There were two guards on the doors of the hulking, intimidating front line variety. However there was something... off about them. One swayed slightly on his feet, while the other was actually leaning back against the door frame. The Jedi's doing? Regardless, it was a chance she couldn't afford to miss. If she was lucky they wouldn't notice her if she stealthed past them.

Akima stepped behind a tent, activated her stealth unit, and ghosted past the guards.

The prison was small, mostly two solid cells whose entrances were blocked by a vaguely purple-tinted force shield. The recon soldiers stood helplessly inside, stripped of weapons and equipment, five to a cell. And in front of them stood the Jedi Elaine.


	4. Life Liberty Death

Chapter 4: Life, Death, Liberty

Credit where it's due: _The Name of the Wind_by Patrick Rothfuss

Notes: Sorry if this is riddled with errors, it's 4:15am and I'm tired.

"Damnation, I thought the colonel would be in here. You, prisoners, where is the col- who's there?"

The Jedi whirled to look at the door and stared straight through Akima, some sort of small cylinder in her hand.

Akima could have sworn she hadn't made a sound and there was no way the Jedi could have seen her, even without her cloaking, as she was facing the other direction. How...?

Elaine relaxed and put her cylinder away. "Oh, it's you, child. Come in. Do you know where the colonel is?"

Akima looked down at herself. The stealth generator was definitely still working . . . she deactivated it anyways. There was no sense wasting power if the woman could somehow see through it. "How did you know I was here? How could you tell it was me?"

"Akima, we thought you were dead!" "Is she really a Jedi?" "How did you get in?"

The Jedis' face stayed serene, but Akima was sure she caught a hint of exasperation in her voice as she replied to the soldiers.

"Your questions are complicated and best left for another time." She then proceeded to ignore the prisoners and turned her attention back to Akima. "Now, where is the colonel? He is the ranking officer still in the camp, is he not?"

"He's in the middle of the camp in a big tent, but-"

"Excellent." The Jedi strode briskly towards the door, brushing past Akima as she did.

"Hey wait! We can't just leave them trapped in here!"

"They would be of no-" she froze. "It is as I feared. He's revealed himself at last. Girl! Run and hide!"

The sudden intensity in her voice was unmistakeable, and Akima felt an overwhelming compulsion to obey. She complied, activating her stealth generator and sliding sideways along the wall opposite the cell doors. There wasn't anywhere else to go. She turned her head towards the door, held as still as she could, and hoped for the best. Nobody moved. Everything was quiet . . . waiting.

* * *

_Akima hid. It wasn't the best hiding spot, that was for sure, but she couldn't keep running. She hadn't been able to really exercise in a very long time, locked up as she'd been. It was a terrifying, debilitating feeling, knowing you weren't fast enough to escape, that they were closing in..._

_ Focus, Akima._

_ Right. She hadn't gotten far, a couple of blocks at most, before she could hear the searchers closing in. They'd slowed down in the narrow streets filled with apartments even smaller than her little home had been, but not slower than her._

_ Akima's legs had been about to give out when she'd stumbled into an empty room, its occupants at work or elsewhere. Nothing special had drawn her to the room, really, except that it felt lucky. The room was virtually empty, save for a couple of cabinets along the floor. She scurried over to one, unsurprisingly empty, and curled up inside and pulled the door closed behind her. She was plunged into darkness and hugged her bloody knees to her chest. She was gasping for air, hot under her blanket, as her feet throbbed against the rough wood, and trying not to fidget as the adrenaline pumped through her._

_ The seconds trickled past._

_ The dark turned cool, then cold. She shivered. Her eyes started to adjust and she could see vague shapes thanks to the warped cabinet door which left little gaps around the edges._

_ Sitting still left her mind free to wander. She imagined the searchers closing in, forcing open the doors, dragging her out to see Ornil again. Her heart pounded in her ears at the thought. Her legs trembled from the exercise, the rest of her from the cold._

_ Her imagination was interrupted as she heard a crash which could only have been the front door. She could make out at least two twi-lek voices._

_ "Idiot, you broke the door!"_

_ "Who cares, this is the warrens, remember?"_

_ The first voice grunted, and then there was only the heavy thud and creak of boots on an old wooden floor before the first voice spoke again. "Tell me what you saw again."_

_ "I must've told you ten times by now! A girl jumped out of the speeder before it went down. Little slip of a thing in white, and everyone knows the hutt puts'em in white when he sells, and whatever the hut sells is worth a lot. So we find her, enjoy her company, shall we say, for a while, while things blow over, then sell her. Simple. Now stop asking questions, we need to clear this dung heap and move on or the others'll find her first."_

_ They were getting closer._

_ Akima's adrenaline was pumping, her whole body clenched tight._

_ Please don't find me, please don't find me, please don't . . ._

_ The door wrenched open and she froze, not even breathing, overcome by terror. A huge, green face crisscrossed with tattoos filled her view. He stared straight at her, rotten breath hot on her face. His black eyes darted left, right, and as suddenly as he'd appeared he withdrew and slammed the cabinet door shut with such force it rebounded and gave her a slit view of the room. _

_ "Crap, another empty room. Come on, she couldn't have gotten much further." Boots moved across the creaky floor and then there was silence. _

_ Akima realized she was still holding her breath. She let it out all in a rush and her body seemed to melt into a puddle of unconsciousness._

* * *

_ Please don't see me, please don't see me, please don't see me . . ._

A shadow filled the doorway and stepped forward to reveal itself as a giant of a man in a huge black cloak.

Elaine stood her ground, arms folded. She wasn't completely at ease though – the silver cylinder was back in her hand. "I thought I sensed your foul taint in this, fallen one."

The man's voice was gravelly deep, and when he spoke fear seemed to seep from him like smoke, infecting all it touched. "You will fall here, Jedi. I sense your fear. Fear brought on by weakness." His hooded face turned to look at the imprisoned soldiers, who shrank back from the man's gaze.

The Jedi shrugged out of her cloak which slipped to the ground and slid into a fighting stance Akima had never seen before. "The only weakness here is yours, lost one. You lacked the discipline to walk the path."

The man unclasped his own cloak and help up his own cylinder, black where the Jedi's was silver. He, too, wore nothing but a robe, his a jet black. "And you lacked the wisdom to see beyond it."

With a hiss the two cylinders grew into. . . glowing vibroswords? The man's was a bright red, the Jedi's a pale green. The two swords seemed to leap out at each other in a dazzling, overwhelming display of sparks and speed. Their styles were . . . unusual, to say the least. They left themselves wide open to attack and favored patterns she'd never even heard of before. It looked choreographed, as if they knew what the other was going to do beforehand. It was almost as if something was controlling them both, even as they battled. The warring glow of colors played on the walls, the hum of the blades accompanied by the staccato crack of opposing energy fields converging. It was all . . . beautiful. Terrible, but beautiful, liking something out of the vids.

The fight, for all its spectacle, did not last long. Though the Jedi did things Akima had never seen with a blade, and doubtless could have cut her to pieces a hundred times over, the man was just as far above the Jedi as the Jedi was over her. He used his strength to back her up against the wall, both of them gliding right past her (and leaving a charred black streak in the prefab terrifyingly close to her). The Jedi fought more desperately, but in a move of apparent insanity the man dropped all defense and sidestepped the Jedi's thrust, as if he knew exactly when and how she would strike. But nobody could do that.

The Jedi stumbled, expecting resistance that never materialized, and in a single casual sweep the man scratched a deep furrow along the jedi's stomach.

The Jedi toppled over with a scream which covered up Akima's retching, and dropped her energy sword.

Somehow the Jedi mastered herself and the screams cut off, though she still breathed in heavy gasps. The man didn't seem impressed.

"Pathetic. It's just like the Jedi to send a diplomat to a war. A weak, sacrificial goat staked out to see who would bite. And you, Jedi," he paused and prodded her with his foot, a sneer of disgust on his face, "didn't even know it."

"Do . . . your worst . . . Sith . . ." breathed the Jedi through clenched teeth. The tears streaming down her face robbed the words of their strength.

This amused the giant of a man. "Oh, I'm not done with you yet, Jedi. As much as I'd like to kill you now, I need you alive . . . for the moment." He half turned away before pausing. He touched her arm with the very tip of his sword and snarled in fierce pleasure at the fresh screams. Akima's shock at such wanton cruelty interrupted even her internal mantra.

After a moment the man mastered himself and turned away from the fallen woman to face the doorway, his gaze passing straight over Akima, who hardly dared to breathe. He opened his mouth to call out but paused, his face creasing into a frown. "I thought I sensed . . . " he mumbled to himself.

Instantly Akima started her silent chant again. _Please don't see me, please don't see me, please don't see me . . ._

After a moment the man shook his head and looked out through the door.

"It's safe to come in colonel. I've taken care of the assassin."

Colonel Thrakken Ennada stepped into the room wearing the same slightly dazed expression as the guards outside. Had the man, what had the Jedi called him? Sith? Had he done something to the colonel? Was he being controlled?

"I see, Jedi Kravius. You were right about the Onderonian's intentions. The Republic would never have sent an assassin, and a true Jedi would never stoop to sneaking around. She must be an imposter sent by the Onderon military to sabotage us."

The man, Kravius, smiled. "You're right, of course, colonel. I heard myself as she interrogated these spies for your location. If she truly was a diplomat, why didn't she announce herself at the gate? We can only assume they knew we were on to them, that the game was up. We can't trust any communications from anyone outside the camp, there's no telling how high the corruption goes."

The colonel paid rapt attention to Kravius as he spoke. When he finished the colonel started to pace, hands clasped behind his back. "Yes, yes, you're absolutely right. We can't trust anyone, not even the general. There's no telling who's controlling incoming signals. We have to assume we're cut off and soon to be attacked. We'll form a defensive perimeter and wait for the general to return."

Kravius rolled his eyes behind the colonel's back, though his tone was as subservient as ever. "Colonel, that is exactly what the Onderonians are expecting. They know they can't fight us head on, so they're trying to eliminate our leadership and cut us off to paralyze us. But if we take the initiative and move to attack them before they're ready, we might single handedly ruin their plans and rescue the general. And I'm sure the general would be grateful and reward the one who came up with such a daring plan . . ."

"Quite right, an excellent plan, I'm glad I thought of it. Thank you for reminding me." The colonel flipped on his comm and ordered the regiment to prepare to attack. With that Thrakken at last seemed to catch sight of the wounded women at his feet, though how he could have missed the harsh scent of burnt flesh and the occasional half-suppressed whimpers of pain was beyond Akima. "What should we do about her?"

Kravius didn't even glance at the wounded Jedi. "Take her to my quarters. I'll interrogate the imposter there and learn her masters' plans."

"Excellent! Men! Get in here and take this assassin to Kravius' command tent for further interrogation."

Four troopers marched into the prison block in full battle gear, though they seemed leery of getting too close to Kravius.

The Colonel pointed impatiently. "Get her, what are you waiting for?"

Something snapped deep inside of Akima. The sight of a woman, wounded and alone about to be dragged off, combined with her own fear, flashed her back to the slave blocks, to the girls further up the line. After the woman, she'd be next. But she had acted, and she had survived. Akima's fear transformed in an instant to adrenaline pumped, rage fueled action. She had to act, had to act _now, _before anyone could do that to her again!

Months of training shaped her anger and intent without conscious thought. Akima launched herself at Kravius' back and drew her serrated survival knife in a single, fluid motion. The lunge left her stealth field a useless, streaky mess, but she was behind him so it shouldn't-

Kravius, as if warned by some sixth sense, reacted almost instantly and half-spun to his right to meet her, but she was too close. Her stab, aimed to hit his heart, instead sliced across his back and lodged in his spine. The sudden resistance ripped the blade from her hands and she ricocheted off his huge body and crashed in a heap on the floor, banging her head in the process, even as Kravius crumpled bonelessly beside her.

The surprise stunned the guards into inaction for just a moment, but without whatever warning the Sith had they were a step slow.

Akima rolled onto her back in time to see hour heavy blaster rifles aimed straight at her at close range.

The colonel didn't hesitate. "Kill her!"

Something smashed into the soldiers from behind, throwing off their aim at the last second and sending them sprawling, even as they pulled the trigger. Whatever it was saved her life, but wasn't enough to throw the soldiers' aim off completely. Akima hissed in pain as a heavy laser bolt burned through her light Recon armor; it felt like molten lava poured onto her left arm.

"No! You will not kill her."

It was Elaine, voice still weak but tinged with authority. Her left arm was wrapped protectively around her stomach, her right extended towards the soldiers now groggily combing to their feet. Could she have somehow . . . but that was impossible. Akima's dazed mind couldn't come up with an explanation.

"Think, colonel," she continued. "Where are you? What are you doing here?"

Thrakken seemed just as disoriented as his troopers. "You . . . I . . . but he . . . what, what happened here?"

The Jedi winced, but answered. "We were deceived, colonel, by that man there." She nodded towards Kravius' motionless body. "He was a Sith and meant to destroy us all and doom our mission here. And that girl you just ordered to be executed saved us all."

Thrakken looked in consternation between Akima, Kravius, and the standard issue Recon survival blade sticking out of his back. Akima, meanwhile, split her time between looking at four irritable troopers with reclaimed blasters, clutching her arm trying not to scream, and wondering how the Jedi was still conscious and able to hold a conversation when all _she_ felt like doing was passing out, and she only had one injury to deal with.

"As the official adviser to the general, I suggest you leave off any hasty decisions until you can explain why you've changed your general's mission parameters, ignored orders from high command, and have ordered your regiment to attack the very military you're supposed to be training."

The colonel turned bone white as the Jedi's words sank in.

"And now colonel, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to pass out." With that she slumped over.

That sounded like an excellent plan, and a moment later Akima joined her in oblivion.

* * *

_Reality slowly emerged from the darkness._

_ She hurt. Everywhere._

_ There was a crick in her neck from the awkward angle it hung at while she slept. The cuts across her arms had scabbed over and itched. Her left hip was stiff, her left leg completely numb. Blisters and slivers burned the soles of her feet._

_ She shifted slightly and dried blood cracked across her body. She felt the movement through her whole body. She was sore in places she didn't even know could get sore. _

_ It took a while before she could spare any thought for her surroundings._

_ She was still in the cupboard, though the lights from the room were out, leaving everything a bluish-black blur. The knowledge was both burden and relief. Thus far her "freedom" had amounted to choosing which way to run and led to nothing but pain and fear. But they were her choices, it was her pain. And now, for once, she could take the initiative. And if she had anything to do with it, no one would ever take it from her again. _

_ The total sum of her possessions was a torn, bloodstained blanket, but she wasn't empty-handed. She had one advantage – she knew how to think, even under pressure, a skill that, combined with the knowledge provided by intense tutoring in the white room, became her weapon. _

_ She thought about her situation as logically, as coldly as she could. She had a problem. She was recognizable, valuable, and defenseless. Okay. One thing at a time. Her value to the hunters came from her connection with the one who'd trained her, the one the twil'lek had called the hutt. She could hide the tattoos on her face, but that was a temporary solution at best. Her long-term options were to get them removed, or to get far enough away that nobody knew what they meant. Anyone she tried to pay to remove the tattoo on this continent, if not the whole planet, would recognize the hutt's mark and almost certainly turn her in for whatever reward was being offered._

_ That left running. _

_ Her last problem was the most pressing. She was completely defenseless._

_ She had no clothes, no money, no connections, no friends. Could she get a job? Not on-planet, no. She had to get off first._

_ She lay still, cramped, hurting, but thinking._

_ A few minutes later, the solution came to her. The Republic. They were probably the one group on-planet big enough to risk angering the hutt. The planet wasn't in the Republic itself, but it was miserable enough to make it worthwhile for them to maintain a recruiting station. The challenge, then, and her goal, was to find it and get from here to there. To do that, she needed a map._

_ She had a plan – time to act._

_ Akima gently pushed the cupboard open. The room was dark, but with the whole door open the shadowed room took shape. The blanketed lumps spread across the floor must be the squatters. The sheets of cloth over the windows glowed faintly with pre-dawn light. She must have slept through the day and most of the night. _

_ She unfolded herself slowly from the cupboard, grimacing and grinding her teeth, tears threatening to break out. Every movement hurt, every muscle, but quiet, she had to be quiet. If they woke she was done for. All her lessons, all her experiences with her father and his friends agreed – the poor were desperate, short-sighted, and dangerous, willing to do almost anything for even temporary escape from their problems. _

_ At last she rolled out of the cupboard onto her knees. Her abused joints ached so badly that a whimper escaped her._

_ She froze, not even daring to breathe._

_ One of the blanket-encased poor moved . . . yawned . . . rolled over . . . and lay still._

_ She breathed again. That was close._

_ The blanket slipped from the sleepers face. It was a child, a little girl, no more than five years old. She looked peaceful, her shoulder-length brown hair clean and splayed across her face in the chaotic disorder of sleep. _

_ At that age Akima had been hiding from her father in his stim rages. _

_ The tears broke free and ran down Akima's cheeks, plowing little channels through the dirt and grime that caked her face. The overwhelming, frightening nature of her problems crashed over her. The little logical voice in her head that shouted that she could handle it, that she had a plan, fought fruitlessly against the waves of emotion that crashed through her._

_ She was alone. Truly, truly alone. She had no friends to run to, no family left to lean on. If she failed, if she messed up, she would die. But somehow, the worst of it was that she missed her parents. Her mother. Even her father. He had been a good man, when he wasn't on the stims. She missed playing carelessly with her toys. She missed not worrying, being happy just because._

_ Come on Akima, get a grip, pull yourself together. Those times are gone and if you waste time thinking about it you'll get caught. Come on, time to stand up, let's get up._

_ Akima repressed a sniffle and pulled one foot underneath her. The other foot slowly followed suit. She teetered as the rush of blood made her lightheaded, but steadied. Okay, breathe. You can do this._

_ She took a step, right foot first, between the girl and another blanketed form. She teetered again but recovered. Okay, another._

_ She stepped with her stiff left leg and almost lost it altogether, stumbling forward another three steps, almost stepping on two more people. Okay, timeout. Breathe. Only one more between her and the gap where the door used to be. Almost there. _

_ It was then that her luck at last ran dry. _

_ Akima took another step and her left leg gave out completely, dropping her heavily to the floor right on top of the last sleeper. _

_ She blacked out for a moment, but quickly regained her senses. Whoever she'd landed on was scrambling away, squealing in fright. The others were moving now, asking mumbled questions._

_ Akima tried and failed to regain her feet. The door was so close! There was nothing else for it. She crawled as quickly as she could, ripping off the scabs that had formed overnight. _

_ Something big hit the floor behind her and instinct overcame reason. She stopped her scrambling crawl and rolled over to see a huge man, an adult, standing over her with a huge piece of wood raised over his head._

_ "You won't steal any of my f . . ." he paused, staring down at her._

_ His faced was confused, the same confusion her own father's had held during the worst times, before he hit her, hit mom. Blind terror inured her to the pain as she scrambled to her feet and fled into the dark, trailing bloody footprints behind her._

…

_ That was the first day of a year in the warrens. She was in shock, afraid, and hurt. Most of her mind was shut down, unable to deal with the trauma she'd experienced. Yet despite being but a shadow of her former self she learned, and she survived. She learned which hotels and restaurants threw away the best food. She learned exactly how rotten food needed to be before it made her throw it back up. She learned of the invisible line between the warrens and uptown. She learned how to hide. She had a secret place, a little nest, on the rooftops where too squalid warrens buildings leaned up against each other. She learned to beg. It was a very practical application of the acting she'd learned with the hutt, but with a very different audience. Money warrens-side was tight, and an empty begging bowl meant gnawing pain deep inside her stomach. Through dangerous trial and error she learned the best way to slit a purse, pick a pocket, and open a lock. She learned to run from anyone with the red glow of stims in their eyes. She learned to lash together rags to make shoes, clothing. The first six months it felt like her feet were always cut, always bleeding, always in pain, but by the eighth month her feet were as hard as leather. And finally, she learned not to expect help from anyone. Cries for help in the warrens were like blood in water filled with feraxan sharks. _

_ Twice she had close run-ins with the bounty hunters, narrowly escaping._

_ She had been in the warrens for just over a year when she decided to try begging in uptown. The buyers were richer, less jaded to the sight of beggars, the cons of thieves, and the hands of pick-pockets. And, frankly, she was desperate. She'd had two days in a row of bad luck begging, and she was hungry. Akima knew hunger, knew the countless shapes it took inside you. That day her hunger wasn't a terrible one. She'd eaten the last of her emergency stores, a half-rotten apple and some salted meat, so the pain was merely painful. It wasn't the bad hunger, the hunger that leaves you weak and trembling. She had another eight hours or so before that hunger set in._

_ Uptown was very different from the warrens. The streets were clean, which immediately put Akima on edge. The people, too, were clean. But there was something off about it . . . the people crossed hastily to the other side of the street, eyes averted. At first Akima took this as snobbish superiority, but they never rubbed her face in it, never kicked her or drove her away like those in the warrens did. Then she recognized it; it was the same mannerisms the passerby held when going by a dark alley. It wasn't superiority. It was fear. When she realized this she almost laughed out loud. What could she possibly do to them? They with money, friends, connections . . . homes. Unfortunately, they also had shops. It wasn't long after she saw a nearby shop-owner whispering to a young employee when a uniformed man arrived._

_ "Hey you, don't you know you're not allowed on this side of town? I could written up for this you little shit." _

_ Akima tried to rise, but the weakness from hunger made her too slow and clumsy._

_ "Didn't you hear me? I said get out of here!" He gave Akima a kick that sent her sprawling. She tried again to scramble to her feet but stumbled and fell again. The guard lost his temper, hissing at her with a kick at each word for added emphasis. "You . . . stay . . . out . . . of . . . uptown . . . understand?"_

_ Akima felt something tear inside of her with the last kick. Darkness gathered at the corner of her vision and it was all she could do to start crawling in a direction she hoped lead back to the warrens. The guard spat on her and turned on his heel, muttering about beggars. One of her eyes was swelled shut and she could taste blood. Her begging bowl was long gone. Even in shock as she was she knew she had to get into cover or she was dead. And so, even though deep inside she knew she was already dead, she started to crawl._

_ She had made it back to the edge of the warrens, marked by a particularly dilapidated hovel, when she felt something distant but familiar. It was her luck, at last returned. Seizing this last desperate hope, she turned towards the door. It was a shabby thing, obviously a cheap replacement for the door long gone, but it felt heavy to Akima's weak arms as she pushed against it. The door slid open to reveal the same room where she'd been trapped that very first night, the room where her luck had run out and abandoned her. The sputtering hope evaporated and Akima let her eyes slide shut as she heard sounds within the single room. She felt warm, warm and comfortable like she hadn't been for a very long time, and she was tired, so tired . . . Was she lying down? She didn't remember, but it was comfortable down here on the floor, and the inviting darkness invited her downward, downward to meet it._

…

_ Akima regained consciousness slowly, flat on her back. She was weak from blood loss, fear, pain. She had some sort of rough fabric draped over her. A shirt? She wanted nothing more than to drop back into oblivion again, somewhere where there was no hurt, no pain, but she could feel that she was awake now. No more escape. _

_ She cracked an eye open. It was dark, but she could see well enough to note that there were bandages across her forearms and the worst of the cuts on her bad legs. The dried blood had been washed off her. She felt almost . . . clean. She closed her eye again._

_ Clean meant disaster. There was only one reason in the galaxy for someone to do this, to clean her up – it was to restore her value, maybe make the slave markings that bound her to the hutt clearer on her face while they were at it. She was caught, going back to the white room, the clean room. It was hopeless. She didn't know where she was, didn't know who was guarding her. No chance of escape. She'd only made it a few blocks; it wouldn't them long to get her back. _

_ Somehow now that it was over, she was relaxed. There was no more fight left, all the fear, all the scurrying was done. It was out of her control now. Instead despair welled up inside of her. She had failed. She had taken her chance, had done her best, and it wasn't enough. It was back to the hutt to be poked and prodded, measured and weighed, evaluated and sold. Or worse, sent back to Ornil. They wouldn't make the same mistake twice, and she'd never be able to escape again. Her life was over._

_ Idly, she hoped whoever had caught her got good price for her, though she doubted it. She knew what it was to be uneducated and poor. In fact, there was a good chance whoever they'd tried to sell her too had just taken her by force. _

_ In the dark a voice whispered, interrupting her thoughts._

_ "They're asleep again, finally." A woman's voice. A man's answered, also whispering._

_ "Good, they'll need all the rest they can get for tomorrow."_

_ What? That didn't make any sense. Could she still be in the room? But why wasn't she tied down?_

_ There was silence for a few moments before the man spoke again._

_ "Well, what do you make of her? She's clearly a runaway."_

_ "Beneath it all, the dirt, the blood, and the tattoos, she really is beautiful, isn't she."_

_ Akima barely kept herself from stiffening. Nobody had spoken about her that way. Ever. Perhaps her mother had, but Akima's only clear memory of her was when she left. Akima listened with rapt attention._

_ "I know, love, but what can we do? We're barely holding on as it is."_

_ The woman responded, her voice taking on a businesslike tone clear even as she whispered. "Well, we'll manage somehow."_

_ "Surely, Jennifer, we can't-"_

_ "What else can we do, John? You can't seriously be suggesting we turn her over to those, those creatures!"_

_ "Shhhh, Jen, easy. No, I wasn't saying we should do anything like that. But surely you can see how dangerous it is to keep her? The thugs that swept through the Warrens had to be looking for her, you know."_

_ Jennifer sighed quietly. "I know . . . but, John, if we turn her out it would be the same as handing her back to the slavers. It will be hard, but we'll keep her here with us, take care of her. I'll take another shift if I have to, I'll see what we can borrow from the others. But we're going to take care of her, John. It's the right thing to do."_

_ It was the John's, turn to sigh. "I know. It's just . . . does the right thing always have to be so hard?"_

_ "If wishes were fishes . . ."_

_ "Heh, I know. We'd be able to give the kids a decent meal for once."_

_ "Thank you John. I love you."_

_ "I love you too Jen. Now we should get some sleep. The kids aren't the only ones with work tomorrow."_

_ With that all was silent save for the soft breathing of sleep._

…

_ Akima was stunned. They . . . they cared about her. They talked about her almost as if she was one of their children, part of their family. They were . . . happy. Happy as anyone with mind-numbing work and grinding poverty, at any rate. It tugged at Akima's earliest, fuzziest memories of a time when mom was still around, when they were together. Before the stims._

_ They were going to keep her. That sounded bad, like taking in a pet, but they were also giving her a place to stay, to hide from the slavers. It was unfathomable. Why were they doing it? The poor were desperate, terrified, powerless. Right and wrong weren't supposed to factor into things when it came to survival. It went against everything she'd experienced on the streets, with her father, and even in her studies with the hutt._

_ If they truly were what they seemed to be that would mean her father wasn't a victim. It would mean that he was weak._

_ No, no, she didn't know anything for sure yet. She'd overheard a conversation was all. Could it have been staged? Maybe. . ._

_ One way or the other, she would find out soon. It was clear that it would be pointless to run. She was exhausted, hurt, and painfully weak. She hadn't eaten in over two days. All she could do now was wait and see. But somewhere deep inside her, the tiniest of flames had been lit. She had hope; perhaps her luck had not abandoned her after all._


	5. Memories

Notes: Sorry for the delay between chapters. I was out of town for a while, and I've had a lot of things crop up in my life. I hope to update more regularly now.

Chapter 5: Memories

The next several days passed in a vague haze of recovery and consternation. Somehow the family had juggled their schedules so that one of the parents or two of the kids were at home with her at all times. Her immediate suspicion was that they were watching her, preventing her from escaping even if she could have somehow gotten up and run. But as time went by it didn't seem to be the case. Sometimes they barely even paid attention to her, like she was part of the background, like she . . . belonged.

And slowly a routine was established.

The children played while she watched, once she could sit up unaccompanied. The youngest played with toys better described as repurposed trash, while the older ones played tag and innumerable invented games. John and Jennifer she knew, but the names of the others she learned as they confidently introduced themselves to her.

Jenni, the smallest, was just coming out of the toddler phase, and was the only child that wasn't working yet. She played with the neighbor's little girl of the same age, the two families trading off on babysitting duties. Adrian, the next youngest, was an overactive five-year-old that loved to laugh and cleaned the chimney's of coal dust at the factory. Coal dust! Technology as ancient as the stars, still in use on this backwards world. They were shaping cheap, inferior metal for local consumption because importing anything better from the Republic was too expensive. The black lung hadn't shown in him yet, but it couldn't be long now. John and Jennifer had been planning to pull him out to work in another area, but he made the best money of them all, and with Akima in the mix that wasn't an option. It was surreal to her that she'd sat bored stiff not two weeks ago, listening to a recorded lecture on the economy of Smarteel (such and as it was) that noted in passing, almost as an afterthought, that the chimneysweeps had a life expectancy of 12 years.

Jr., the next oldest, was eight. He already clamored to be part of the "grown up" group and tagged along wherever the older ones went. There was a gap where Jessie should have been, but he'd died in an accident at the factory. Abby and Beth, twin girls at 13, giggled outrageously and talked of other Warrens boys in hushed, half-joking tones.

And last was Jared, who'd just turned 16. He was tall, mostly done with his growth spurt, and well muscled from his work at the factory. His brown hair, shaggy from inept haircuts at home, hung long, and he had a smile that lit up the room.

Akima often caught him looking at her. He would blush, smile as he held her gaze for a moment, his blue eyes shining, then turn away and return to what he was doing. To Akima, trained as she was to read potential buyers and discover how to please them, it was about as subtle as a slap in the face. And yet, even without the challenge, it was somehow refreshing. It wasn't a competition, it wasn't a test.

She should have been suspicious, should have been worried about hurting his feelings in a way that would get her kicked back onto the street, but somehow . . . she wasn't worried. It was just so easy, all of it, that she relaxed. She didn't worry quite so much about the hunters, about the hutt, Ornil, where her mother had gone, or the rest of it. Maybe her luck hadn't gone yet; this could be her luckiest break yet.

Akima didn't speak.

She played with Jenni and Adrian as her strength returned, smiled at the twins' jokes, endured Jr's constantly being in her shadow, helped with chores when and where she could. And she shared Jared's looks. She did all of these things, but what could she say?

They weren't simply offering her food, shelter, clothing, and protection, which was incomprehensible enough. They were offering her themselves, their family. They were giving her a place to belong. How could "thank you" even come close to repaying that? And until she could understand, she would observe it, lest she somehow do something wrong and end this little dream and be thrust back into reality where she was scared, alone, and helpless.

She struggled to comprehend it.

The answers she had been taught by the hutt were true, but somehow they lacked something. The family had a lot of kids because they could work and provide income, as well as being too poor to afford proper contraceptives. But that didn't explain the love they had, the mutual reliance and support they gave each other. Late at night when Akima couldn't sleep she heard John and Jennifer talking about having another child, and money was never mentioned, neither the expense nor potential earning power. There was only love.

They worked on the barter system with their neighbors because the community lacked the capital to effectively join the official economy. But that didn't explain the communal celebration of weddings, of the new year and the changes of the seasons.

Her studies, as good at predicting things as they were, seemed to leave out as many of the causes as they included.

Two weeks after she had been taken in Akima found a way to help repay a little of the infinite debt she owed them. It was the one day of the week the factory let the workers have off. Akima was holding Jenni, Jr. as always tagging along, when Jennifer walked in towing a heap of scrap metal. She set it down and gently woke John, who was asleep on his blanket.

"Hey John, I traded Aunt Ariadne for some of the scrap metal she got from that crashed speeder a few weeks ago. She's getting too old to make the trip up to the scrap heap, so she gave me a good deal. Would you mind taking it up to see what we can get for it?"

John yawned and stretched. "Yuuuuuuuh, um, yeah, of course."

The scrap looked familiar to Akima. In fact, it might be a bent miniaturized power generator wrapped in crumpled bodywork. She'd never seen one that small before, but the machinery at her factor was pretty much the same . . . if it was, it was worth a small fortune. Only luxury craft needed that kind of power, and only very expensive luxury craft would pay that much for the improved performance that the lighter miniature versions provided.

John hefted the scrap and carefully stooped to pick up each piece of the worthless plastic bodywork. They had no idea, and they'd doubtless get a pittance for it while some mechanic made a fortune overnight.

"Wait . . ."

John froze, as much in surprise that she'd spoken as from what she'd said.

Akima passed Jenni to Jennifer and took the pack from John. Her fingers, almost free of the last of the bandages, worked the edges of the crumpled body, slowly easing it off the generator while John, Jenny, and Jr. watched.

The generator was definitely not functioning despite the power switch being jammed in the on position, but why? She popped the casing off and set to work investigating. The circuitry all seemed more or less intact, from the generator to the outlet. There was still a little bit of fuel, and the tank itself was thankfully intact. Ah, there it was. The support strut was cracked was all, creating just enough of a break to cut the circuit. Not a problem at all. She forced the two haves together, popped the switch from off and back to on, and the generator whirred to life. Just like that. A piece of junk transformed into powerful technology. For John, for Jenny, it would be a change from a meal to relative wealth, to life itself for Adrian. From five credits to 5,000, at the very least. It was crazy, this was something she'd learned at the very beginning of her time at the factory. How much difference even the most rudimentary of education could make.

She held up the gently whirring generator and spoke, her throat fuzzy and clogged from her silence. "This is worth at least 5,000 credits."

John and Jenny looked dumbfounded. It was more than they made in a year. Almost two years.

John seemed to overcome his shock first. "But where could we find a buyer? Anybody with enough money to buy it would just take it from us."

Akima smiled. "Leave that to me. I will need a few credits and Jared, though."

Jenny nodded decisively and lifted her blanket, where she scraped together the few credits underneath one-handed and gave them to Akima. "Jared should be at the swapmeet."

John moved to stand next to her and wrapped his arm around his wife. "Good luck!"

It was only half-way down the block that she realized they'd just given their life savings to her, a complete stranger. She could take both the money and the generator and run, without a problem. They had no hold on her at all.

The smart thing to do would be to run. She needed every last credit she could get for passage off-world and enough for food until she could find some sort of work. But when things were bad, when she'd been helpless, afraid, hurt, they hadn't done the smart thing. They hadn't turned her in on the off chance they'd actually get the desperately needed reward money. They'd helped her, sacrificed for her. She just couldn't throw that back in their faces.

They were all that she had.

"Hey Jared, come with me."

Jared looked up from where he was haggling over the trading price of some sort of broth that would doubtless be for dinner. He, too, looked stunned when he saw that she was speaking.

"You . . . you can talk?"

Akima rolled her eyes. "Of course I can talk. Now come with me, I need your help." She grabbed him by the hand and dragged him off, already explaining her plan.

Twenty minutes later they were headed towards the market at the edge of uptown and as far from the safety of the warrens as she dared.

"Are you sure about this?" whispered Jared. He was carrying the generator and trying to look both presentable and humble at the same time. They'd bought a loose, huge poncho to cover up his definitely not man-servant worthy clothing. For her they'd bought enough make-up to cover up her tattoos and make her presentable, and a nice-quality, very concealing robe.

"Yes I'm sure, just don't say anything when I'm talking to him and we'll be fine."

He nodded, looking both nervous and excited, before giving her that look of his. He'd gotten over his shock at her speaking quickly, and if anything the looks of admiration and affection had increased in intensity.

Akima looked away. She needed to focus, and she felt something funny swoop through her when he looked at her that way. She shook her head gently as they slowly approached the merchant she'd scoped out, with just the right combination of reputation and money. Enough of both to be able to buy on the spot, but not so much that he'd turn them away on sight.

Even thinking about the plan could only distract her for so long, however. Jared. What was she going to do about him? She knew how to act, what to say, what to do to get him into bed with her. He wouldn't even know what hit him, and wouldn't have the slightest clue that she'd maneuvered him. But that felt so wrong, the world of seduction and sexual manipulation so far removed from the simple innocence of his crush. It was so different, in fact, that she didn't know what to do. She'd been taught how to fake desire, how to provoke desire, but such clinical and desensitizing intensity hadn't left her room to figure out how to feel it. A problem for another day.

At last they approached the mechanic, a thin Duros dressed in rough, Smarteel clothing, but finer than anything she'd seen in the Warrens. He had an eye-patch over one eye. Akima could almost hear the little chime of the voice in his head announcing another prospective buyer.

Show time.

. . .

Drodis Kavquux's single remaining eye traveled up and down the prospective buyer approaching his booth. She was wrapped in a loose, flowing blue robe, the hood pulled over her head. It was difficult to make out her face between the hood and the scarf wrapped around her, covering up to her eyes. An offworlder with no taste for the sun, perhaps? Before he could speak, however, a flood of alien, smooth sounds flowed out of her. He was a little taken aback, and could only give her a blank look.

She paused for a moment before another torrent of noise poured out of her, this time sharp and chopped.

He shrugged helplessly.

The woman cocked her head to the side in obvious frustration before switching to galactic basic.

"I suppose you at least speak basic on this planet?"

It was hard to miss the disdain or the offworld accent, though he had no idea where it came from. Probably the Republic, if she walked around with this much confidence and superiority. Damn tourists. But they were a big enough part of the economy that even he had a few tourist trinkets.

"Yes maam, we speak Basic." He held his temper firmly in check, however. Credits were credits. "What can I interest you in today? I have a wide variety of novelties unique to-"

"I'm not here to buy, but to sell."

"To . . . to sell?" What could a tourist have to sell?

The woman gazed down imperiously at him. "Yes, to sell. My speeder broke down in this smoggy gunk you call an atmosphere, and my mechanic tells me I need to buy a new power generator. Mother said I should have a cultural experience on this little field trip, so I decided to sell the broken one in the quaint market of yours. Boy, show it to this . . .gentleman."

Drodis took the generator and gave it a quick once over, expecting something for the garbage heap. Someone rich enough to have a luxury speeder definitely could afford a worthwhile mechanic that would fix it if it could be saved. He could barely contain his excitement when he saw the real cause of the problem.

"My man told me it is certainly repairable, though not without equipment he doesn't have available. He says it's worth . . ." she paused, hand to ear, consulting via commlink beneath her hood. ". . . 7,000 credits."

Something was off. Drodis paused a moment trying to figure out this mechanics game. A moment later it came to him, and he repressed a smile. The mechanic's claims were completely bogus, of course. He was lazy, and probably not in the mood to do any favors to his bossy employer, even if it cost her a few thousand credits. Drodis tossed a mental thanks to the man, whoever he was.

Outwardly Drodis stroked his chin. "I don't know, maam, I'm sure some of it is salvageable, but 7,000 is what it's worth brand new and under warranty. This one has obviously seen a lot of K's, and I'll have to rent the specialized equi-"

"Your problems don't interest me," interrupted the woman again. "The pity play won't work on me, merchant. However, your point is taken. 6,000 credits, my final offer."

Couldn't she tell a merchant from a mechanic? 6,000 was already a steal, but she had annoyed him. "5,000 is the best I can do."

The woman twitched, shuffled her feet, and agitated enough that he could almost hear her teeth grinding.

"Deal. Boy, give it to him and take his money."

The boy looked scared as he gingerly picked up the credits, awed by the amount of money. Well that was odd, if she really was as rich as claimed he should bored, not . . . freaking out. As soon as the generator was in his hands, however, the boy dropped from his thoughts. 1,500 credits made after some easy repairs and a little used price drop. Just like that. It was almost enough to put him in a good mood. He supposed he owed her a little bit from all the money he'd just taken made off her.

"Hey, maam!"

The woman paused and half-turned to look back at him. "Yes?"

"A word of friendly advice. There's an escaped slave running around out there. If some little girl tries to stow away on your ship, it's a cool 50,000 credits if you turn her in to the authorities."

Did the woman stiffen? Maybe . . . but . . . 1,500 hundred credits, hmmmm, the possibilities!

. . .

Akima walked away locked in an icy silence, muscles clenched. Fifty thousands credits. Her wonderful new family had risked everything for five thousand. Everything. What would they do for-

"Akima!"

She flinched and almost stepped back from Jared but managed to hold her ground.

"You were amazing! How did you learn to act like that? Incredible! The way you just talked down to him like you did it every day, and then . . ."

Jared gushed as they walked, his blue eyes glowing with his happiness.

Akima felt the tension slowly flow out of her as they walked. No, they wouldn't turn against her. Not them. She was still safe . . . or as safe as she could be on this planet, anyways. So many problems. It was wonderful to just walk with Jared, filled with the glow of success, and just let go for a moment.

Jared had stopped talking, but he was walking much closer, their hands almost touching. Uh oh. _This isn't a good idea Akima. You can't hide here forever, and getting more attached will only make it harder to leave. It will never work out between you. No Akima, what are you doing? Stop!_

Her hand intertwined with Jared's entirely of its own accord. Somehow, she couldn't find it in herself to regret it.


	6. Recruited

Chapter 6: Recruited

The first thing Akima felt was a jolt of fear; she was clean. The old impulse passed in a moment, the final gate between sleeping and reality as she reemerged into consciousness. Not only was she clean, she was lying down, comfortable. She breathed in and recognized the sterile, chemical smell of a hospital. She cracked an eye open and took in her blue, open-backed gown, the white sheets on a hospital bed, and muted wall tones, before closing her eye again and snuggling a little deeper into the bed with a sigh.

She'd dreamed this time. Memories she hadn't thought about in a long time had come back, memories of the distant, backwater planet that was her home. Memories of her adopted home . . . of Jared. Happy times, while they'd lasted. Well, she was still alive; her luck hadn't run out yet.

She opened her eyes and took in her surroundings more carefully. Her left arm was heavily bandaged, but there must have been a kolto salve beneath the gauze because it felt cool and didn't itch or hurt. Hospital equipment, a mess of wires hooked into her bed and right arm, hummed gently while she was monitored by a humanoid droid sculpted to be aesthetically soothing.

The droid noticed her glance and reached for a comlink to alert someone, probably a nurse.

Akima sighed and looked at the pale tan ceiling, thinking on recent events. Jedi . . . she wasn't sure what to make of them. The high and mighty attitude Elaine had given her out in the field was annoying, but if _she_ had those crazy powers, well, she might rain down some high and mighty judgment on the next slaver she came across. On the other hand, life had gone crazy as soon as the jedi stepped into her life. Her unit had been captured, people had tried to kill her, the CO had gone crazy, and somehow they'd almost started a war. And, most frightening of all, she'd had to _kill _someone. Yeah, it was theoretically what she'd signed up to do, and it was mixed with a defiant sense of rough pride that she could fight, defend herself, but still. If this kind of thing happened every day to them, like the stories said, who would want the jedi around at all?

The door slid open with a soft puff of air. Speak of the devil . . .

Elaine Trulena slid into the hospital room with the soft patter of hospital slippers. Somehow, remarkably, she seemed to be just about healed. Just another of the impossible things the jedi had done. So not only did she get Akima into deadly danger, but she got to heal almost instantly while Akima slogged it out in the hospital.

She wore a deep brown robe over a dull tan tunic, her brown hair puled back into a tight bun. She carried an old-fashioned datapad with her, while her light sword thing hung at her waist within easy reach. Her free hand held a steaming mug of caf. Without preamble she started reading aloud from the datapad.

"Akima Mahe, Corporal, transferred to Reconnaissance on the recommendation of your previous superior officer. Twenty-three years old with two years of active service." She looked up from her datapad at Akima's seventeen year old body and frowned before looking back down at the datapad. "Fluent in Hutteese, Twi'lek, Rodian and basic. Born on Deralia. Commended by General Kelrian for services above and beyond the call of duty for actions on Onderon."

Akima felt herself puff up a little bit with pride. Yes the Jedi had helped, had saved her, but she had done something positive, something meaningful. The General himself had commended her . . . but the Jedi wasn't done yet.

"Formally reprimanded for disobeying a direct order. Formally reprimanded for abandoning her post in wartime conditions. Dishonorably discharged for previous actions. Court martial and criminal charges dropped for extenuating circumstances."

Akima's heart dropped. She sat silently in shock. She'd lost everything. Again.

The Jedi set aside the datapad and took a sip of caf before continuing. Her eyes bored straight through Akima.

"Akima Mahe . . . actually born on Smarteel, taken by Lorna the Hutt as a slave to cover debts. Trained in seduction, conversation, body-language, politics, economics, language. Sold to Ornil, Governor of Smarteel. Escaped from her master, killing him in the process. Lied to recruiters about her age and enlisted in the Republic Military to get off-planet. Successful, clever, an innovative tactician, prompting the promotion to Recon. Showed initiative in infiltrating a Republic unit using self-developed, unconventional tactics. Successfully masked her presence from a fallen Jedi. Killed said fallen Jedi with nothing but a survival blade."

They stared each other down for a moment of tense silence.

How did she know? How could she have possibly discovered that much about her? She couldn't hide behind the military any more and this Jedi just flaunted her knowledge of Akima's history. The unspoken words were loud. I know your secrets, and those you run from. Do what I say, or else.

The Jedi set down her mug by the datapad, pulled over the visitor chair from the corner, and sat down beside Akima's bed. She leaned forward, hands clasped in front of her, and gazed down at her with those frighteningly penetrating blue eyes.

"Akima. May I call you that? You're no longer 'Specialist Mahe.'"

Akima shrugged mutely, still in shock.

The Jedi raised an eyebrow at her silent acquiescence, but carried on without comment. "We find ourselves in a unique situation. You have one of the greatest connections to the force I've ever seen. The force has led you, helped you, protected you. The force has chosen you. And yet . . . and yet . . ."

She paused for a moment and the first hint of uncertainty crept into her voice.

"You are too old. Far and away too old, Akima, to be trained."

Akima finally broke out of her stupor, and her hands closed into fists, clumping the hospital gown between her clenched fingers. This woman marched in here and thought she could toss of some facts and control her, make her dance to the Jedi's tune. And to top it off, she had the gall to be completely vague and mysterious about it.

"What are you talking about? Trained for _what_? What force am I connected with?"

Elaine sighed and sat back in her chair, steepling her fingers in front of her. "For a woman as educated as yourself, you know remarkably little about the Jedi. Tell me, do you know nothing _at all_ about us?"

Akima shook her head, arms crossed, and a glare on her face.

The Jedi closed her eyes for a moment and muttered something to herself about emotions and peace, though it was all nonsense to Akima. Elaine opened her eyes and started speaking calmly, deliberately. "The Jedi, Akima, are a special people. We have the unique ability to feel the force, an invisible energy field all around us that joins us, binds us to all other life in the universe. It guides us, directs us, and enables us to do what we do."

Akima's anger and suspicion waned as her curiosity was piqued. One of the mysterious, powerful Jedi was explaining some of their beliefs, their secrets.

"So this 'force' gives you power?"

The Jedi waffled. "In a sense. The closer you align yourself with the will of the force, the more effectively you can use the force."

"Wait, so it _controls_ you?" Warning flags started waving in her mind.

"Partially. But you must choose to follow it, to do what the force prompts you to do."

Akima thought for a few moments, weighing what the Jedi had said and what she'd seen of them. It made sense, mostly. But wait . . .

"What about that man? The 'lost Jedi' or whatever you called him? If this mystical force thing tells you what to do, then why did you lose? Why didn't I? Why would it guide the two of you to fight each other?"

The Jedi crossed her arms. "That man was a fallen Jedi, one who once allied himself with the force, but now uses the force to serve his own ends in violence, greed, and destruction. They are the antithesis of the Jedi, and the greatest danger to the Republic today."

Akima rolled her eyes. The Jedi was dodging the question.

"You didn't answer the question. If the force guides you, but not them, why doesn't it stop helping them?"

The Jedi replied a little stiffly. "That is a question for the Jedi masters. If you join the Jedi, you will get the answers you seek."

Akima squirmed for a moment. She knew many in the military that would jump at the chance to be a Jedi, to be important, but still Akima hesitated. The Jedi didn't seem to be the sort of thing you could get out of. It seemed to be a sort of religion, too. Not exactly a good way to stay free, independent.

Elaine broke back in. "From what I have been told of you, and indeed, what I've seen myself," she smiled at that, "you have issues with authority, with following orders. It's not all that hard to guess why." She glanced up at Akima's slave tattoos. "However, I can assure you the Jedi have a lot more freedom than common soldiers."

Akima dropped her head and stared at the sheets, tracing the patterns of wrinkles while she thought. She couldn't stay in the military even if she wanted to, thanks to this discharge. She didn't have an education or skills that she could put on a resume. If she'd been able to complete her tour successfully it would have been a different story, but now . . . She had no contacts, no family or friends outside of the military. When it came down to it, she had nowhere else to go. Between that and the jedi's threat . . . She looked back up at the Jedi. "Alright, I'll do it."

* * *

Elaine stepped out of the hospital room and the door slipped closed behind her. Only then did she allow herself to sag against the wall and let out a sigh of relief as the impassive mask slipped to reveal her exhaustion. She stepped to the side of the narrow corridor to allow the crowds of medical people and droids to move through. Her recognizable brown robe kept a small bubble of space around her as the river of life and energy flowed past her. It was ironic, really, one of those little things that kept life interesting. The jedi had chosen to use a simple robe as their dress to keep them humble, to let them blend in, but somehow it had become as visible and obvious as any general's dress uniform. At least it was more comfortable.

She stared through the corridor's little window out over the huge defensive wall and onto the Onderonian plains. A storm was rolling in from the distance, dark thunderclouds whipping the jungle trees back and forth.. Nearby the golden fields were calm, knee-high grass gently rustling in the breeze.

It had been a risk to strong-arm Kelrian into discharging Akima. He could have talked, could have told the girl, or raised the rumor mill, already grinding in overdrive, into an absolute frenzy. Fortunately her feel of the general had proven correct—he was in damage control mode. He was just general enough to be irritated at losing a good soldier, but was enough politician, as all generals surviving in this era of peace were, to appreciate losing a witness to his . . . unfortunate breakdown in control of his men. The Jedi smiled. He was also eager to appease the Jedi who had prevented him from inadvertently causing the war he'd been ordered to prevent at all costs. In short, the Jedi had saved his career and he owed her, big time. Enough to toss a promising young soldier on the political sacrificial altar alongside the hapless Colonel Thrakken.

Elaine crossed her arms and leaned against the window frame, paying no mind to the flow of traffic behind her as the storm approached. The wind was blowing harder now, the grass swirling. A few loose raindrops splattered onto the transparisteel. It had been a risk, yes, but it had been necessary. Akima hated being told what to do, if her CO, her slave tattoos, and the way she'd totally ignored the jedi's own orders told her anything. The only chance to get her was to take away all her other options.

And she would get Akima into the Jedi. The masters had to see how important the girl was, what a valuable study she would be. She could mask herself in the force! A completely untrained girl! And she'd killed a fallen Jedi, saved her own life, saved the mission. The masters would let her in, surely. They just had to. She would make a fine jedi. But it was getting late and she needed to send her report. No more time for dawdling. She turned from the window and headed towards her room.

Outside the storm had finally arrived, and rain lashed the hospital as the season slowly turned towards winter.

* * *

_It was raining. The sky was pitch black with lightning that cracked across the whole length of the sky and thunder that shook the huts with all the power of a desert thunderstorm. The warm humidity spread the sweet, clean smell of rain throughout the dirty city, turning dirt to mud._

_ Akima stood at the doorway of their shared room and looked back at the wonderful people who'd sheltered her, protected her, their dark forms littered the floor much as she'd found them, but now with better blankets and full stomachs. John and Jennifer lay together, as in love as ever. Little Jenni lay wrapped in her mother's arms while Adrian had abandoned his normal spot and lay between his parents as comfort against the storm. Jared was on his own, becoming independent even in sleep, his last night before he started school. Jr., the ubiquitous shadow, lay not far from his hero. Abby and Beth were as inseparable as ever, lying side by side where they'd fallen asleep gossiping. There was so much love, so much hope and excitement for the future here. And the best thing she could do to help them now was to leave. _

_ It hurt to leave. They had what she hadn't even realized she'd longed for. Love, support, caring, even teasing. These were things so far down in her memory that she could hardly recall a time when she wasn't alone. But, despite what she wanted, it was the right thing to do. It was the only way she could try to repay them for all they'd done for her._

_ She took one long last look and turned to step out the door. Outside in the storm she let her tears fall unhindered at last. She'd left a message explaining as best she could on Jared's new datapad, but it didn't say enough. It could never say enough._

* * *

Akima's goodbyes were quick and painless. She had been too afraid of anyone discovering her past to make close friendships, and after only a few minutes she headed outside to be greeted by a rare day of clear skies. She marveled at the warmth of the sun on her skin as the Jedi led the way to a speeder borrowed from Colonel Thrakken, a TL-55, a sleek, fast model at the top of the line. It was the nicest speeder Akima had ever seen. Akima herself lay wrapped up in a thermal blanket, at the insistence of the army medics, to keep warm. There was a fresh bandage on her arm. She was awake when they changed it this time, and her shoulder looked markedly improved. They'd given her a fresh uniform with no rank for the trip. It wasn't much, especially considering that her back pay was on hold pending official review (which meant never), but it was better than being thrown out into the storm the night before with nothing. Slightly better.

The Jedi steered them slowly through the crowded military camp, abuzz with activity, rumors, and more than a few stares for the jedi, past the gate, and out into the plain. While big for Onderon, the flat expense quickly gave way to the famed Onderonian jungle. Where they were going, Akima had no idea. She'd come down to the planet on the big Republic bulk transports, and they weren't big on window seats. She didn't bother to ask, however. She was still too annoyed with Elaine, and in the end, there wasn't anything she could do about it anyways.

After about an hour of painfully slow maneuvering they at last broke through the edge of the jungle and out onto a huge clearing. It was obviously man-made, judging from the mess of massive stumps and roots that still littered the ground, but what caught Akima's attention was the city that came into view at the clearing's center. The city was massive – it had to hold most of the planet's population. Towers and spires reached up to the sky, a stunning contrast to the dense jungle they'd just emerged from. High above drexl beasts, some as big as a small shuttle, wheeled and called to each other. Above them was the heavily forested moon of Dxun. It was truly astonishing to look at, so near it filled almost the entire sky. It was whispered among the soldiers that drexl beasts sometimes picked up lone soldiers and carried them all the way up to Dxun to eat them alive. She hadn't believed it, of course, but seeing one for the first time she was less sure.

"Welcome to the capital of Onderon, the city of Iziz."

Akima turned to Elaine, who had a broad smile on her face. She must have seen Akima's awe.

Akima brought her attention back down to the city before them. She tried to take in as much as she could as Elaine accelerated and sent them skimming over the snarled tangle of roots towards the city. While the clearing was only about a kilomoter wide, it would be a living hell trying to get the regiment through that terrain, even without the walkers. The damned things were useless, honestly.

Iziz itself was ringed by a massive wall. To keep the animals out? That seemed a little excessive.

"What's the wall for?" shouted Akima over over thee wind that whipped past them.

"The wall is to keep out the bigger predators and the beast riders!"

"Beast riders?"

"Descendants of the people exiled from Iziz long ago. The people of Iziz and the Beast Riders have never seen eye to eye, though relations are better now than they've been in a long time."

"I didn't see any of them!"

The Jedi shook her head before shouting back. "You were in an army camp with huge, loud machines. Of course they didn't want to come over and say hello while their animals panicked and ran. Plus, they've never been very welcoming to outsiders."

They slowed as the speeder approached a massive gate at the base of the wall. An Onderonian soldier stepped out in front of the speeder as Elaine slowed to a stop. The soldier was a human male dressed in what must have been an Onderonian military uniform. It was brown with a cap and white wrap around the shoulders offset by gold piping and, most unusually, had a black mask that covered his entire face up to his eyes. The soldier waved them through when he saw Elaine's Jedi robes.

Once inside Elaine quickly parked the speeder next to the waving military flunkie that was waiting for them. They got out and the jedi marched onwards through the city, leaving Akima to hurry after her while carrying her little bundle and clutching her blanket close. She could only catch glimpses of the soaring architecture of the buildings around them. Moments later they were in the spaceport and a harassed-looking Onderonian soldier in a darker version of the uniform glanced over at them.

"Great, yet another Republic ship clogging up the space lanes. Well, you can just wait your turn Jedi, I'm not going to jump you any places. I'll let you know when you can leave." The soldier turned pointedly away to talk to another group of Onderonians. The Jedi turned without a word and started making her way through the hangar. Akima followed, half her attention on the host of ships in the hangar. Her hands itched to take apart and put back together some of the complicated looking ship parts strewn about the hangar. Mechanics swarmed throughout, stepping over and around fuel lines, welding metal, rewiring, and generally trying to make their ships space worthy. The most common ship was a squat, flat-ish shuttle that looked like a sideways letter "D" that must have been native to Onderon.

She caught up to Elaine in a few moments. "What was his problem?"

Elaine replied without slowing. "That, Akima, was the venerable Lt. Colonel Vaklu."

"Well what's his problem with the Republic? I mean, you're a diplomat right? How is he allowed to talk to you like that?"

Elaine's jaw flexed for a moment, the only sign of anger Akima had ever seen from her, even when fighting for her life. She spoke without slowing her march across the hangar. "You're right, he's not allowed to speak that way. Unfortunately, he's cousin to the princess, which allows him some . . . leeway. As for his issues with the Republic, they're twofold. The first is that in the war between the Beast Riders and the Royal Family of Onderon, the Jedi switched sides to the Beast Riders after they discovered that the royalty was worshiping the dark side of the force. They eventually were forced to kill both the queen and later the king. The old nobility still remembers that and takes it like a betrayal."

Elaine gave a disgusted sniff. "The other reason is a lot closer to his heart, or rather, his wallet. Iziz relies entirely on imports for manufactured goods, so control of the the shipping fleets defined the upper class. Vaklu's family controls one of the largest on Onderon. He used his influence with the Royal Family to be appointed to the spaceport staff which allowed him to help his company along and make money hand over fist."

Akima jumped out of the way of a cargo speeder headed towards one of the transports before replying. "But then why wouldn't he like the Republic? Wouldn't being in it give him access to bigger markets without all the tariffs?"

Elaine nodded to herself as she continued, somehow managing to look casual and unhurried while making her way through the chaotic hangar. Somehow she always seemed to be in the open spot at the right time. "You might think that if your training was all theoretical. Think about it – you're a shipping company for a small planet that mostly exports raw materials. How effectively will your merchant marine be able to compete against the huge bulk cruisers of the Republic companies? It will help Onderon overall, but Vaklu's company will be destroyed , and unless he can get himself some other appointee position, he's finished. But don't worry about Vaklu, he's a problem for another day."

Elaine brought their conversation to a finish just as they stopped in front of a starship. Akima gasped as it came into view – it was easily the nicest ship she'd ever seen, despite its small size. The shuttle was a custom built, heavily modified _ministry_ class shuttle, making it smaller, sleeker, and much faster. It was beautiful.

"Wow . . . that's _yours_?"

Elaine looked over her shoulder and gave Akima a tight smile, her mood improving. "Not quite. This shuttle belongs to the Jedi Council, not me. And, as in all things, we Jedi value quality."

The boarding ramp lowered on its hydraulic pumps at their approach and an expensive, top of the line astromech droid chirped at them from the top of the ramp.

"Get us ready for takeoff L3."

The droid whistled an acknowledgment, extended its third leg and wheeled out of sight.

The two humans stepped up the ramp in pursuit, and the ramp closed behind them.

The ship truly was small, mostly just a cockpit with pilot and copilot chairs, a very small passenger compartment, a cramped refresher, and two narrow bunks against the back wall. Elaine slid into the pilots seat and started talking with the Iziz control tower while behind her pilot's chair L3 plugged itself into the navicomputer.

Akima looked around for a moment before dropping into the co-pilots chair. She deposited her bag in the little netted carry-on container at her feet and struggled with the unfamiliar and complicated straps, secretly grateful that Elaine was too occupied to notice her struggling.

Several minutes later she was finally strapped in. Elaine finished with the tower and somehow got her restraints on in about two seconds.

The engines started with a dull rumble and the repulsorlifts fired, gently easing them into the air. A red beacon pulsed on the hangar wall and the flow of mechanics, pilots, and passengers parted in an instant as the shuttle eased forward out of its parking spot and into the narrow corridor of space that led to the hangar exit. The view out the cockpit shifted as the repulsorlifts whined and the maneuvering jets fired.

Akima didn't want to interrupt, but the protocol drilled into her at basic itched. "Um, don't we have to wait for that man to clear us?"

Elaine smiled. "Oh, he won't stop us. He can drag his heels, but if he wants that appointment he's looking for he can't do anything to stop us without a very good reason that he'd have to explain to some very important people."

For a few moments there was nothing but mechanical chaos that they never quite crashed into, but at last the space before them cleared. Akima's hands clenched on the padded armrests and she leaned forward eagerly as the shuttle approached the lift pad. She'd tried for a handful of seconds to be as impassive as the Jedi, but the prospect was just too exciting. Yes, technically she'd been in space before, but always on a gigantic bulk cruiser that crammed soldiers and equipment in alike. That was being strapped into a box. _This_ was space travel!

Light flooded the cockpit as they exited the hangar and maneuvered onto the large, circular launch pad. The towers of Iziz surrounded them, and Akima could just make out the Royal Palace if she craned her neck to see out of the corner of the viewport.

Power flowed into the repulsorlifts and they smoothly raised the shuttle higher. The view slid upwards to the brilliant blue sky and for a moment they seemed to hover weightlessly before the main engines kicked in and shoved Akima back into her seat, head bouncing on the headrest padding. Her stomach gave a lurch at the massive acceleration and the ship almost seemed to vibrate as they smashed their way through atmosphere. Though it seemed a long time to Akima, it took only a few minutes to break free of the thick Onderonian atmosphere and into the perfectly smooth, silent vacuum of space.

"L3, put us in orbit while I get the jump coordinates."

The droid chirped an affirmative as Elaine took her hands off the controls and rotated her pilots chair away from Akima to do something with the navicomputer.

Akima spent her time looking down at the beautiful, massive sphere of green pocketed by creases of blue. White clouds flowed like water around the planet, blackening in places to form Onderon's legendary storms. It was a unique experience seeing something so powerful, so violent, from a completely isolated, peaceful place.

"Coordinates locked in. Bring us into the approach vector."

The view changed again, pulling up away from the planet to the darkness of space. Only, it wasn't the darkness she'd expected from looking up on her home planet, Smarteel, or Onderon. The faint, flicker stars were gone and in their place was a remarkable sea of brilliant lights, not a flicker in sight.

"Wow . . ." whispered Akima. She didn't see Elaine's small smile at her exclamation.

"Ready for hyperspace?"

Akima nodded eagerly.

Elaine pulled a lever on the control console and the stars drug out into lines. Akima's insides seemed to flip as an intense, overwhelming sense of acceleration was gone almost before she'd felt it, and then they were in the solid white light of hyperspace, on their way to the next big step in Akima's life.

* * *

_Akima braced herself for a major change in her life. The Republic recruiting office was, slavers' palaces aside, the largest building she'd ever seen, and it towered over the narrow alley that sheltered her. It was clean and inviting with big windows and open spaces, all very deliberately done to try to draw in the hopeless and downtrodden people of this miserable planet. _

_ Well, there was nothing else to see. It was still too early for many people on the street to be out in the cold, dry air, so there was little chance of someone spotting and recognizing her. No sense delaying the inevitable . . . nope, none at all. Nothing to slow her down._

_ Come on now, just do it._

_ Akima marched out, crossed the street, and within a few moments was inside the recruiting center. She instantly had the full attention of the single recruiter on duty, but even so she felt like a great weight was off her shoulders. The decision was made. No more second guessing, no more hiding._

_ She walked straight up to the twi'lek in the orange and gold uniform of the Republic and got to business._


	7. Initiation

Chapter 7: Initiation

Akima was desperately tired of waiting. She wanted to act, to face the Jedi, to _do_ something. Unfortunately, after all the work that had gone into cornering her into becoming a Jedi, the only thing she'd done was get familiar with what the shuttle bulkhead looked like.

Recon soldiers were famous for their patience as well as their skill. You had to be patient to lie still in the muck all day and not lose your mind. And that was on top of the enforced patience of the white room. But even so, staring at a bulkhead for two whole days while the Jedi did who knows what in councils talking with the other Jedi to determine her fate was a little much, even for her. If she'd just been able to wander the enormous plains of yellow knee-high grass they'd flown over on the way it would have been _something_, but no, it was there, taunting her, just in view through the cockpit's viewport. It was sort of like the few open spots on Onderon, but here the plains spread for miles on massive, windswept plateaus. Little trenches ran through the plateaus like the cracks in mud left to dry in the sun, and it was mostly in the shelter of those crannies that animal life made its home.

_Listen to me, describing the scenery that's right in front of me to myself. I must be going-_

The hiss of pressurized air signaled the boarding ramp being lowered.

"Finally!"

Akima turned to the ramp as Elaine slowly walked up. She had an oddly formal air, her hands hidden in the folds of her large sleeves while her hood was up. She spoke slowly and deliberately.

"Akima Mahe, you have been summoned by the Jedi Council. You will meet them tomorrow, and they have granted you quarters for the evening. Please follow me."

Akima swallowed her irritation. They only used that formal tone in the military when something really good or really bad was about to happen. It frightened her that she didn't know which this was.

They marched out slowly and Akima abruptly became hyper-aware of just how she looked. She'd used the 'fresher to to clean herself off as best she could, but there was no avoiding that this was day three in the same uniform she'd been given as they hustled her off of Onderon. Whoever had left her the uniform hadn't bothered to get anything, like other clothes, from her locker, and it had doubtlessly been divided between the rest of the soldiers in an instant.

On top of the dirty uniform, she hadn't done anything with her hair. Her mind flitted back to all the lessons she'd been taught on how to make herself presentable in high society, the proper ways to speak and act on a dozen core worlds.

_Calm down, Akima. You knew this was coming. They forced you into this, and if they judge you for how you look than they're idiots. _Still, she was on edge as Elaine led her onwards through the landing zone. She distracted herself by taking in her surroundings.

The shuttle itself was in a flat open field with a thin layer of duracrete laid over it, exposed to the wind. To keep the shuttle from toppling in particularly powerful gusts, the spaceport crew had pulled out some heavy clamps and attached the shuttle's legs to the duracrete itself. The field that had been just in sight from the cockpit lay on all sides of the landing pad except the front, which was some sort of hill.

They walked onwards, slowly making their way around the hill, and she saw that a structure was being built into the hill itself. They passed a gap cut into the hill and Akima took a peek – it was a construction pit. Could it be some kind of bunker? Maybe a depressed landing zone so the ships wouldn't be exposed to the elements?

They marched on.

Past the construction lay the Jedi complex. It was unassuming, to say the least. The complex consisted of a handful of squat, rounded buildings of a dull tan color not that different from the color of the grass that dominated the plains. They looked remarkably like the little hill they'd passed by. Orbital camouflage? Was this some sort of secret base?

Too late to think, the front door, a big wooden thing that bore a little too much resemblance to a monastery for her liking, drew near. Akima felt her curiosity spike as they walked in the front door. Rumors of the Jedi, their private temples and training, ranged from the mundane to the truly bizarre. They stepped into a sort of central courtyard all built around a good sized tree, its branches reaching outwards to shade most of the grounds. Surprisingly, light was provided by a natural skylight above. A stream gently tinkled through the delicately sculpted scene. Brown-robed people were everywhere, some glancing curiously at her, but most engaged in soft conversation or simply sitting quietly taking in the scene. It was disappointingly normal, idyllic even. To be fair, they did all seem to have one of those laser sword things, so that was something.

Elaine steered them left and Akima followed in her wake. She shook off the feelings of sticking out and stood a little straighter. She was Recon. It might not be where she served now, but it was who she was, where she belonged. Even the Jedi had to respect that.

They left the natural light behind and stepped through another automatic door and into a corridor so simply decorated that it crossed the line into downright utilitarian. It was, oddly, almost reassuring. She'd been desperately poor, a slave, a fugitive, and in the military. She could do utilitarian. They made a couple of turns and came to a stop beside what proved to be the equally drab guest quarters. A row of beds, closer to cots, really, dressers, and a communal refresher. Nobody else appeared to be using them. Elaine nodded her inside. "I'll come get you tomorrow morning for your presentation to the Masters. Days here are a little over 25 standard hours, so you shouldn't have any troubles adjusting."

Akima turned back to ask her a flood of questions but she was already gone. Well. Akima stepped over to the cot and sat on it. Hard. Okay. Well, she was here at last.

* * *

_Akima prepared herself for basic training and her new instructors as best she could by reviewing what she knew about the military as she sat in the recruiting center waiting for the shuttle to arrive. She could calculate the political gains and losses of army movements, the economic consequences on local regions during warfare, even the names of some of the most predominant generals in the galaxy. That was all well and good for talking to a governor or regional authority at a ball, but it didn't tell her much about the army itself. _

_ What was basic training like? What was daily life for a soldier actually like? She had no idea. So she waited, she thought, and she wondered. Every time her anxiety grew to a fever pitch she reminded herself that she'd survived the white room – she could wait a handful of hours for a shuttle to at last get her off this rock._

_ Eventually a soft whine caught her attention. She glanced up eagerly from the waiting seats at the elevated shuttle platform to see a gray smear far off in the distance. The sound grew louder and more complex, deeper engine notes added to the high-pitched maneuvering jets, as the shuttle neared and gained detail. She made out the inverted V of wings sloping off the central cabin. The workhorse of the Republic, the NR-2 Gully Jumper. The durasteel gray shape splashed with red paint descended to meet them, its wings folding upwards as the repulsorlifts fired higher to take the load._

_ Akima jumped to her feet without realizing it, staring up in fascination as the shuttle finally set down with a heavy ka-thunk, the landing legs taking the shuttles weight. The wash from the shuttle's turbines tugged at her hair and clothes before powering down, prompting a huge grin, before the boarding ramp descended. It was happening. She was really leaving._

_ Akima grabbed her bag and rushed towards the shuttle but was caught in the shuffle of much bigger bodies as the grim faced men and woman strode aboard. To her disappointment she ended up in one of the middle seats without a window._

_ She stuck her duffel bag under her seat and tried to work out how the buckles attached while the others put their bulging regulation duffels into overhead bins. They'd given Akima her own two duffels at the recruiting station, but she'd crumpled up one and put it inside the other; she didn't have anything else to put in it. It was happening. She was finally leaving to start the first day of her new life._

* * *

Akima jolted out her reverie at the knock on her door. She'd woken up early and was too nervous to go back to sleep, so she'd showered and made herself as presentable as possible before sitting on her bed imagining all the ways this could go horribly wrong for the last two hours.

Elaine opened the door without waiting for a reply and nodded approvingly as she saw Akima was up and ready. It was time. She climbed to her feet and followed Elaine out through the corridors again. A surprising number of Jedi were already out and about as well, despite the early hour and the pale light of the sun still lost somewhere across the plains. It was both familiar and off-putting at the same time to have this weird group of famous people behaving so much like the military.

And with that last thought they stepped out of the hallway, through a little waiting area, and into a rounded amphitheater. _Well that I didn't expect, _she thought as she stepped down the three steps and onto the stage. Was it for actual plays, or so everyone could see in big meetings? Or was it a super-scaled practice ring for sparring? No time for that now.

They came to a halt, Elaine in the lead and Akima a military-perfect pace to the side and half-pace back. The four people in front of her exuded such a sense of calm, easy authority that Akima slid into parade rest.

A small alien that didn't even come to Akima's waist stepped forward, his brown skin wrinkled and clear through his wispy white hair. His three-fingered hands were clasped in front of him and he spoke in a raspy, slow voice in basic, though it was clearly his second or third language what with the way he occasionally reversed syntax.

"Welcome you are, Akima Mahe. The Dantooine Academy this is, administered by this council. I am Master Vandar. Our head instructor, Master Zhar." He gestured to the twi'lek male to his right. The twi'lek, Zhar, grinned at her in what might charitably have been called off-putting, if not downright threatening. His white teeth gleamed in a jarring contrast with his red skin and purple eyes. And those eyes felt like they were taking her apart bit by bit and weighting the pieces. This Master Zhar was one to watch.

"Master Vrook," said the tiny Vandar, pointing to the next in line. Vrook was a tall human male, light skinned with brown hair and blue eyes. He nodded politely to Akima.

"And Master Dorak, our historian and chronicler." Master Vandar indicated the last figure, a brown-skinned human male. His black hair was cut short against his head, which he inclined gently towards her, his green eyes reflecting the light as he gazed into her eyes. It felt like he stared straight through her. Akima shivered and hoped he couldn't read her mind. Who knew with Jedi?

Master Vandar stepped forward, bringing attention back to himself. "The council has agreed, Akima, that present us, you do, an unusual case. Too old for the training, you are. Yet a powerful connection to the force, you have. Slain a fallen Jedi, you have. Stopped a war, you did. These are the acts of a Jedi. Decided, it has been, that you will be trained."

Master Vrook let out a grin and shot a glance at Zhar, who rolled his eyes.

"Yes," broke in Zhar, "you shall be trained. And, _if_ you achieve the rank of Padawan, you shall have a teacher in Jedi Knight Arren Kae." He looked back at Vrook with undisguised triumph.

Whatever that meant it seemed to shut Vrook up. That didn't sound good for Akima. She glanced at both of them, irritated that they would be playing out a personal grudge, or competition, or whatever, with her life while she was right in front of them. They obviously didn't think she'd amount to anything, and didn't even have the decency of pretending to take this seriously. So much for that easy authority – zip – out the airlock.

Master Vandar seemed to concur as he gave both the masters a scathing glance which made them drop their faces back into a bland, casual interest. If that had happened in the military . . . the concept hardly bore thinking on. She took it back. There wasn't much discipline among the Jedi, that much was apparent. Maybe they were just early risers and the similarities ended there.

Akima caught Dorak's eye without realizing it. He gave her a wan smile and shrugged knowingly, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking. Well, maybe there was hope yet.

Master Vandar took charge again. "Your training will begin tomorrow. Take turns, the Masters will, with your initial instruction. The youngling Belaya will show you your room." He nodded in the direction of the door where a young human girl in brown pigtails stood, half-hidden behind the door frame. She squeaked as she was named before rushing forward, almost stumbling in her haste.

"Yes Master Vandar!"

The Master in question smiled kindly at the girl who was already taller than he was. "Your enthusiasm is commendable, youngling, but learn patience you must."

"Yes Master Vandar," said the girl in as serious a tone as she could manage, before turning at Akima and in just as high and excited a voice as before said, "come on, let me show you your room!"

Akima felt herself get caught up in the child's wake as she was dragged off towards the dormitories, haunted by the sight of Belaya, the spitting image of a younger Abby and Beth.

…

Her room was small, but to her it felt huge. She'd never had her own room before, and she had no idea what to do with all the space. Her single bag of possessions, retrieved by another youngling from Elaine's ship, would fit in a small corner of the footlocker by her bed, in spite of the stack of brown robes, tan tunics, and white underclothes that had been thoughtfully left for her.

She piled them neatly away and lay on the bed that was surprisingly comfortable, staring at the ceiling. It was a dull beige stucco, unadorned by any sort of decoration. She traced imagined patterns through the bumps and whorls of the stucco while she thought about her day, the jedi, and her future, and slowly her eyes started to drift closed.

* * *

_Akima sat in the spaceport terminal, head leaned back and eyes closed. She slouched in her chair, one leg draped over her duffel bag so nobody could steal it without her noticing. She ignored the rumbling din of many voices in the crowded building, tuning them out as best she could. Especially tuning out the calls home. The buzz of conversation was more animated today – they were finally shipping out to basic._

_ Akima put her hands to her head and gently massaged her temples. The Republic Military Reception was long, inefficient, frustrating, and filled with shots. Lots of shots. For Akima, with no identification or documentation of any kind, it was a living hell. She was constantly given suspicious glances when she announced that she did not, in fact, have a triplicate copy of her birth certificate, a pilot's license, or form YT-1300f, or whatever other document it was they wanted. They were the same you're-different-than-me glances she'd gotten on the streets of uptown Smarteel as a beggar. It was made even worse by the everyone-look-at-me public humiliation of having to go to every single extra line and walk through every single extra station. It seemed like the entire building had stared at her as she alone took the oath to become a citizen of the Galactic Republic._

_ And then there were the doctors . . . the less said about them, the better. She'd gotten intimately familiar with the feel of gloved fingers probing and prodding. Waddling like a bloody duck while they watched was bad enough, but when she had to bend over and crawl, well, she'd almost lost it then and there. But it was done. Her arms throbbed from the multitudes of shots she'd gotten, her head hurt from the non-stop interrogation and suspicion, and her eyes burned from being awake for the last 20 standard hours. Fortunately all she had to do now was stay awake until the shuttle arrived. No way could she miss this flight._

_ She dropped off for a moment only to jerk away again. She needed to do something if she was going to make it that long. She leaned forward and pulled her duffel bag into her lap, its crumpled half-empty state yet another indicator that she was different. She unzipped the gold and black bag and rifled through the contents. She'd been given two full dress uniforms, a copy of the Soldier's Guidebook, and a mouth guard. She still wasn't sure what that was for. She'd been forced to buy (borrowing against her future first paycheck) a new pair of running shoes, physical training sweats, and a handful of Republic Army gray t-shirts for exercise. That, mixed with the handful of underclothes and toiletries she'd also borrowed from her future self to pay for, was all that she owned in the galaxy._

_ "Shuttle X395A2L now boarding from terminal 18C. First class seating first please."_

_ Akima staggered to her feat, duffel bag in tow, and made her way to the back of the line, mildly irritated that the terminal announcer hadn't realized that the whole shuttle was requisitioned for the military. Just another of the little things that happened when you were in the gargantuan Republic. A lot of the details tended to get lost in the mayhem. An interminable amount of head-bobbing, not-quite-sleeping later and she'd boarded the shuttle and was unconscious the instant she dropped into her chair._


	8. Training

Chapter 8: Training

_"Welcome to basic training grunts! Now pick a bunk, drop off your bags and report to the exercise field!" Akima dropped her bag off and followed the crowd of gray t-shirts and running shorts in the wake of the perfectly pressed drill instructor who seemed to have his volume cranked up to 11 at all times. The recruits jogged outside in a disorganized scramble and grouped together in a clump at the center of the field. _

_ "Look at you! You think you're in the army!? You think you're soldiers!? You don't even know how to walk! How to stand! My GRANDMA marches better than you!" The instructor shook his head, disgust evident on his face. "You're not even worth talking to yet."_

_ "But nobody tol-"_

_ "DID I GIVE YOU PERMISSION TO SPEAK?" roared the senior drill sargeant as he got right up into the face of the offending recruit. "Drop and give me 20 pushups!"_

_ Akima blinked. He definitely had the intimidation thing down. It didn't hurt that the human was built like a solid brick wall. _

_ "Now that this fine example of intelligence has scraped his sorry butt off my exercise ground, Lt. Raiken here will show you how to stand and how to march. Then we're going to see what you pathetic lot can do on the Physical Training test. Now drill sargeant, get these sorry excuses for soldiers out of my sight!"_

…

_ Akima lay on her fully made bunk, too exhausted to sleep. Every muscle in her body ached, and the drill instructors had shown her a whole new group of muscles she hadn't even know existed just so she could ache even worse. The first day hadn't seemed so bad, though the initial exercise was rough and a brutal eye-opener for some of the overweight recruits. They'd had classes on landmines (a breeze), chemical, nuclear, and biological threats, and first aid. _

_ Then the rest of the week had happened. _

_ It had been a never-ending series of running, drills, marching, pushups, and complete control of the recruits. No unprompted remark had gone unpunished, and even the slightest variance from given instructions, no matter how bizarre, was met with shouting and a drill instructor in your face eager to hand out a round of punishments for the whole squad. Akima was torn emotionally by the whole experience. Part of her demanded she violently resist the army's attempts to control her, to break her down. She had to remind herself constantly that she'd asked for this, that it was temporary. Another part of her wanted to laugh at the attempt. Being a slave and having someone try to permanently break her spirit showed her just where the drill instructors had drawn the lines. That understanding that they weren't actually trying to get her, an understanding which her fellow recruits lacked, helped her see what they were doing. _

_ While she didn't like to admit it, it was clearly working. A week ago they'd been so woefully bad at everything they hadn't even realized how far they had to go. Now they could march together in formation, recognize the ranks of the soldiers around them, wake up and go to sleep on time, and work harder than any of them had ever worked before. It was different from her education as a slave. There it was learn or be punished. Here, it seemed to be learn and be punished. They demanded she push as hard as she could, then showed her how to push even more. _

_ She was around the middle of the pack in the exercise department. She was painfully thin from malnourishment, which made all the running, the pullups, the swimming, more difficult, but at least she hadn't started off fat. She just had to grow muscle. _

_ All in all, she was content to keep her head down and get through it._

* * *

_Just keep your head down and get through it, Akima, just like in the army_. _Okay, was it left or __right?_

Despite getting misdirected (Recon didn't get lost, as a rule), Akima arrived at the training grounds precisely on time, and very uncomfortable in her new beige tunic. It just felt . . . different. It was tight and loose in all the wrong places, and she had no idea how everyone here seemed to make it cross the chest and fall just right. Hers seemed to lump up no matter what she did. They didn't give her a robe, that must have been reserved for the real Jedi. _No, the full Jedi. Come on Akima, you have to accept that you're here now, that you're going to be a Jedi._ It was hard. The Jedi were stories, legends, that belonged in a land far away and long ago, that rescued other people and slayed other peoples' dragons. It wasn't something you expected to show up on your planet, much less have someone tell you that you were going to actually going to become one.

She looked up as she stepped through the open doorway and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw Master Dorak waiting for her. At least she wouldn't have to try to justify herself being there to Master Zhar her very first day without knowing what his problem with her was.

Dorak gave her a smile that said without words that he knew exactly what she was feeling. And with that Akima felt like she had a friend. Maybe she could find a place here among the Jedi after all.

Not that she had a whole lot of choice.

"Welcome, Apprentice Mahe. I know this can all be a little overwhelming. Unfortunately, we will have to condense your training in order to have a chance to get you caught up to others your age, so we will not be able to give you the settling in time I would like. Still," he paused and favored her with a crooked smile, "jumping straight into your studies may be the best thing after all."

"Yes, Master Dorak." She gave him the formal half-bow of Corelia which made him laugh.

"No need to pander to me, young one. I'm just an old fogey who loves his stories. Where did you learn that, anyways?"

"Old? You can't be more than thirty!" Hopefully he didn't notice as she dodged the question with blatant flattery. That wasn't something she was willing to talk about, especially if Elaine hadn't already told them. Best not to give Zhar ammunition, in any event.

"Hmph. 42. But you're young, anybody older than you is automatically ancient, even with _real _ancient people like Master Vandar around for comparison."

Akima smiled and relaxed.

"There you go, I knew you weren't all military stiffness. Come on, let's walk. I can't abide telling a good story sitting still."

Dorak led the way and they wandered the Enclave and training grounds while Dorak described the day-to-day affairs of the academy, the names of some of the more prominent Jedi, and a little about the settler families of Dantooine. At last, however, Dorak got down to business as they approached the construction zone that was, indeed, a future landing pad. They sat together in the shade of the structure's walls.

"Ooph. Sitting down out here reminds me of how old I am." He settled himself more comfortably on the grass, somehow making his full robe look regal while her tunic just sort of splayed out around her. Apparently being taught etiquette was one thing, practicing with the kriffing getup another entirely.

"Now, Akima. I have been tasked with your initial instruction about the Jedi and the Jedi ways. Believe me, it's a daunting task." He stared out over the plains, his eyes unfocused. His voice was slow and somehow soothing as he spoke.

"The Jedi are an idea, a belief. So long as those ideals are recorded, are passed down, it doesn't matter if every last one of us is killed, the Jedi will live on. We are a conglomeration of every race and species, ruled by common consent. Ultimately, we _are_ the Jedi code."

Dorak paused to glance at her with yet another smile. "That's why we old Jedi sometimes get stuck in the rut of talking about it endlessly. It really is that important though, and it's generally not very well understood. There are some subtleties I'll try to help you grasp. Now, do you know it yet?"

Akima nodded. Elaine had made her memorize it on the flight over.

"There is no emotion, there is peace.

There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.

There is no passion, there is serenity.

There is no chaos, there is harmony.

There is no death, there is the Force."

Dorak nodded gravely. "Yes, well done. Now, for the hard part. What does it mean?"

Akima blanked completely. She'd been told to memorize it, not think about it. Military habits were harder to break than she'd thought. "Uh . . ."

"Take your time," Dorak broke in kindly.

What _did_ the kriffing thing mean, anyways?

"Well," she began hesitantly, "it means, umm . . . it describes how every Jedi should be, right? The ideal Jedi?"

Master Dorak sighed heavily and seemed to sag in on himself. Suddenly he looked old. "No, Akima." He raised his hand to forestall the objection she was tempted to make. "Forgive me, Akima. The answer you gave is, in the strict sense, true, and it's an answer that many Jedi would give without a second thought. And that, I think, is one of our greatest failings as Masters. We teach our Padawans, our family, really, how to play with lightsabers, how to fight, how to negotiate, how to impress the uninitiated with parlor tricks, but we have not taught them how to think, how to know _when_ to act."

He sighed again and wiped a hand over his face. "The costs of war, my dear. Force willing you won't live to see war as I have. It is so easy to get lost in the demands of the moment and lose your way. The Galaxy has earned a rest since Exar Kun's defeat. Ah, I was distracted again." He smiled at his own foibles. "The code, yes, we were discussing the code. Hmm . . . where to begin . . .

"The Jedi Code is a description of an ideal Jedi, as you said," he added to forestall Akima's objection. "The question that you did not ask, and the reason our answers are very different, is simple but very important; What are the Jedi?"

As he spoke Dorak seemed to grow, to gain energy and passion as the years slipped from his shoulders.

"As we discussed, the Jedi are an ideal, but of _action,_ not of _being_. How can a species of twenty years and of 700 years have the same standards for being patient, for understanding, or for mastery of anything? No, the Jedi are not defined by their ideal state of being, but rather, their ideal way of _acting_. Think of the Jedi Code.

"'There is no emotion, there is peace.' The code neither denies the existence of emotion, nor its value. What is life, but the emotional attachments and connections we create, through which flow the force? There is emotion in the life of a Jedi, but when the time comes to act, to choose, we set aside that emotion and think logically and clearly, not making an emotional decision in the heat of the moment.

"'There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.' Ha! This is one of the most obvious. The first step towards wisdom is acknowledging all you don't know, and what cannot be known. No, the ideal Jedi is not one that knows everything, but rather that has learned everything possible about their own situation, about the decision they must make, and then makes their choice knowing full well the consequences.

"'There is no passion, there is serenity.' How can the Jedi be without passion? How can they _be _a Jedi without being passionate about truth, about justice, about the code, about doing what's _right_? It cannot be. The Jedi must be passionate, but they cannot be when they act. When a Jedi decides, they do not let the cause blind them. They must be dispassionate in order to see clearly, to not by blinded by rhetoric and ideals into _believing_ situations, and even facts, to be or mean something different that fit more cleanly into the ideals we are so very passionate about.

"'There is no chaos, there is Harmony.' Again, how can we deny the chaotic conditions of the galaxy around us? If there was any question before, Exar Kun answered them – the universe is not a perfectly ordered place. Our purpose is to bring harmony to the galaxy, so to deny harmony is to deny our very purpose. But when a Jedi acts, there must be no chaos within him, he must be at harmony, his reason, his sense of wrong and right, his goals, and his actions. He must be in harmony with himself so that the force may guide him.

"'There is no death, there is the Force.' This, now, this is the ultimate expression of the Jedi code. Of course there is death. We see it every day, all around us; we are not so high in our ivory tower that we cannot recognize the realities of the universe around us. But when we act, there is no recognition of death. It does not influence us – there is no fear of death, there is no running from it. There is only the guidance of the Force.

"We recite the code not out of blind dogma, but rather as a reminder before every decision of a Jedi in action. Now Akima, don't hear the words, hear the meaning, hear what they are saying to you as you prepare to act, to embark on this journey with us.

There is no emotion, there is peace.

There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.

There is no passion, there is serenity.

There is no chaos, there is harmony.

There is no death, there is the Force."

Akima stared into space without seeing as the last echoes of the code faded away. Though they had said the same words, somehow it was different, it _felt_ different, when Master Dorak said it. It hadn't been a simple recitation, it had been something, it had meant something.

Dorak waited another moment for his words to sink in before continuing. "I see I've given you something to think on. That's quite an accomplishment for one so old and 'out of touch' as we Masters are so often accused of being. But there's one more thing I want you to think about. There is a temptation, a temptation as strong as it is subtle, to believe that somehow we Jedi are superior to those who do not use the force. This thought is insidious, and it can creep into our thoughts, our judgments, without our ever realizing it. That is completely against the Jedi code, and any Jedi who believes or acts in that way is going against the code.

"While what I told you was true, that the Jedi are a code action, there is a little bit more to it. In order to act according to the code, you must believe in the principles behind it. Those principles are fairness, justice, mercy, and honor, and above all a respect for all life, whether or not it can use the force. This is the way I've found most helpful in reminding myself of this temptation. Of the five lines of the code, how many refer to the Force, or using the Force?"

Though the answer was immediately apparent, it somehow felt wrong to just throw out the answer. Her oddly thoughtful mood led her to consider each line carefully, before at length answering "The last."

"Yes, Akima. One line, and the last one, at that. Think on that, whenever you are tempted to mourn a Jedi more than another being. Any individual can be a Jedi in all but a single point, which, in some ways, is the least important of them all. The force changes our options, our actions, but it doesn't change the person, or the intention. Now, Akima, I will leave you here to think on what I have said. Return tomorrow at the same time to the training hall for your next lesson."


	9. The Art of War

Chapter 9: The Art of War

* * *

_ "Welcome to your next lesson, maggots! After all our hard effort you can almost walk, talk, and dress yourselves. **Now** we're going to see what you're made of! Report to the exercise field! Platoon dismissed!"_

_ Report to the exercise field – it felt like that phrase was repeated every time a drill sergeant spoke. They did more running, more pushups, more sit ups, more swimming, more obstacles, more of everything than she thought was physically possible. But the drill sergeants never stopped, unlike those for the pansies over in the Navy. A hot meal every meal, no matter where in the galaxy you were assigned, and a cushy post on a cruiser somewhere awaited them, and they already talked down to the grunts that did all the real work. The **Army** drill instructs, on the other hand, just kept going, and somehow Akima and the others managed to keep on going with them. _

_ At least things seemed to be settling down a little bit. Most of the cases of homesickness and crying at night had died away, at least in Akima's barracks. She got along well enough with the other girls in the limited private time at night before bed, but really, not much interaction was required. They were all so tired that they cleaned up their areas to the exacting specifications of the drill sergeants and collapsed into bed. Then they got up 5:30am and started it all over again. Honestly, there wasn't enough time to make your bed, not to mention to moan and groan. _

_ They ran obstacles, they learned about field first aid, they practiced rappelling, rifle drills, firing positions, and more. Akima took it all in stride. If these soldiers complained, they should try working in a sweatshop sometime. For Akima, the things the other girls complained about were easy. More time for calls? Vid calls instead of sound-only? Longer showers? No makeup? More to eat? Honestly. Those things were easy. The hard things were those that she didn't see coming. It was hard seeing the happiness in the eyes of the others in the few times they'd been free to talk about their families. It was hard that she was on the only one in the platoon never to get a letter. It was hard when the soldiers talked about who they were going to see, or what they were going to do, when they got back home._

_ At least it was almost done. _

_ And now, in the last week of basic, she got to vent her frustration in the ring, where their mock-up rifles with giant pads let them beat each other senseless without injury as they practiced their rifle drills. It was straight combat, no artificial advantages, just showing what you'd learned and having fun beating the crap of each other. _

* * *

Master Zhar stood patiently waiting for her in the training hall. Upon seeing Akima he got straight to business. "Apprentice, normally we would start you off with mental exercises and simple martial arts techniques with practice sticks, but I am told you received adequate instruction in the military."

_Adequate!?_ Akima kept her annoyance to herself, however. She knew all about inter-branch rivalry. So far, the Jedi hadn't done anything to make her think they were immune to that particular syndrome.

"Leskin! You may enter now."

A Rodian walked into the training room, obviously not a day older than thirteen.

"You will have a sparring match with Apprentice Leskin to demonstrate your current level of aptitude." He gestured towards one of the racks along the wall filled with vibroswords. They didn't even have the respect to give her a dulled practice blade, they were that confident she couldn't touch him.

Akima seethed as she stepped over the weapons rack and pulled out a vibrosword to check it for balance. She was back in the white room of one-way mirrors being judged again. Stand here. Fight him. Recite the major systems of the Rimma Trade Route. Everythign controlled, the outcomes already known, and her choices non-existent.

Still, there was one way to get back at them. She swung a vibrosword a few times, pleased with the balance and weight. She would kick this kid's butt, and do it with enough control not to hurt him.

Akima and the Rodian took their places at the opposite sides of the practice ring while Zhar took position between them on the sidelines to referee. The Rodian, Leskin, waved his vibroblade (dulled, she noted with disgust) in a rough approximation of a traditional Tarisian dueling salute before settling into a stance that could be charitably called sloppy.

She would tear this kid apart.

Zhar glanced at both duelists who nodded their readiness. "Begin."

Akima stepped cautiously towards Leskin, her stance controlled, her form perfect. She wouldn't mess up this opportunity by being overconfident. If anything, Leskin looked even more hesitant than before. He edged towards her nervously.

She struck hard and fast and the kid barely got his blade in place to block her. She attacked again, a simple two strike pattern. He was so late on the first block he should have taken the second overhand strike in the face, but somehow, impossibly, he leaned to the side just enough to allow her blade to harmlessly slide past him, millimeters to spare.

Akima took a step back and eyed Leskin. Was he playing with her? There was no way they could actually train Jedi to fight like this, with all last-second blocks and ridiculously close dodges - that was suicide. A single mistake and you were dead. And yet, Leskin didn't grin at her, didn't taunt her or do anything else to indicate his ridiulous defense wasn't perfectly serious. If anything he looked more focused, his former nervousness receding. His form still sucked.

There was no way she was going to let this kid who clearly had no idea what he was doing with a sword beat her, whatever Jedi training he had.

Akima went all in, raining blows down on Leskin, throwing elbows and kicks in for good measure. Somehow, maddeningly, the kid blocked or dodged every blow. His blocks were clumsy, they were late, and his grip was so bad it was a wonder he didn't drop the sword altogether, but he stopped her.

His mouth flexed in the Rodian version of a smile, and suddenly he was fighting back, sneaking in an attack or two between the gaps of her assault. She held her own, but they were deadlocked.

His grin left as quickly as it had come,and Leskin was back in super-concentration mode. Akima was puzzled for a moment as to why, when suddenly Leskin seemed to accelerate. The quickness it took to sneak his blocks in at the last second morphed into raw speed, and suddenly it was Akima on the defensive.

His attacks came faster and faster, forcing Akima's defensive circle to close in tighter with every passing moment. They battled on for a few minutes, Akima holding on, before Leskin really let loose. He launched himself up ludicrously high in the air and actually somersaulted _over_ her. She was so shocked she was slow to turn, and she'd only made it halfway when his practice blade crashed across the back of her knees, folding her legs and dropping her heavily to the floor. Instantly his sword was at her throat.

"Enough."

Leskin stepped away at Zhar's terse command and Akima punched the practice mat in frustration. How did she lose to that stupid kid? He was kriffing _terrible!_ Stupid Jedi and their stupid cheating super powers. Of course they would give her a test that was impossible just to put her in her place. Leskin bowed to her and turned to walk out of the room, which Akima didn't bother to acknowledge. The hypocrisy didn't deserve recognition. He was either in on this, this _humiliation_, or he was too stupid to realize she'd been set up – this was about as far from an honorable fight as it got.

She climbed to her feat and turned to face Zhar who stood perfectly erect, arms crossed behind his back. He nodded to her.

"You fought adequately, apprentice."

"Shut it, schutta."

Zhar couldn't hide his surprised recoil and his eyes narrowed as she continued.

"You set me up, humiliated me intentionally."

Zhar's voice was as slow and calm as ever, but Akima could feel the disdain leaking out from behind his eyes.

"Nonsense. We needed to test your capability, so I selected another apprentice of approximately the same level of combat ability.

"Save that kriff for someone who'll believe it. That was as far from a fair fight as you can get – he didn't know the first thing about dueling, about _fighting_, and I don't know anything about this force thing. Surely _somebody_ here knows how to fight, and could test me without cheating to win.

Zhar frowned, but there was enough sneer in it to show a lot of razor sharp teeth. "Control your temper, _apprentice_. You cannot expect us to bend _every_ ruler for you, human."

Akima knew how to deal with bullies.

She got right up in his face. "I know what you're doing, _master. _You don't want me to be here, you don't think I should be trained. But you're so afraid that you're wrong that you're trying to undercut me, trying to get me kicked out, trying to _control _me. Well get this through your head, _master_ Zhar. I'm not leaving. And I'm not taking lessons from you, nor will I call you master again, until you stop acting like a little boy with his pride hurt and you regain your honor and act like a Jedi's supposed to act."

Her tirade finished, she turned and stormed out of the training ring, leaving a stunned Zhar behind her.

Akima stormed off fuming. Apprentices and Padawans gave her wide-eyed looks while the Masters stared down their noses at her disapprovingly. She couldn't take it, she needed to get out, to get away from all these people and their judgments.

Her anger quickly dissipated in the morning heat. The air was filled with the buzzing of insects and the waves of summer heat as she flopped down on the manicured lawn of the Jedi grounds overlooking the wild fields and her thoughts caught up with her temper.

_Idiot, idiot, idiot, Akima!_

She'd really blown it this time. She'd insulted one of the Masters, and not only that, a Master on the Council.

_Okay, calm down and take stock. Look on the bright side._ She was too restless to sit, so she stood and started pacing. Zhar already didn't like her, and certainly wouldn't now, but she was pretty sure Dorak did. Vandar, hopefully, would reserve judgment until their session. She'd have to watch herself around them and probably apologize to Zhar, though it grated to think about. She couldn't afford to get kicked out of here. There was nowhere else to go.

She sighed and stood to wander the grounds restlessly, replaying the conversation in her head. About the fifth time through she found herself leaning against the half-constructed landing pad. She looked out over the yellow fields without seeing them, pondering how to do damage control, when she heard a young, masculine voice behind her.

"Hey, you okay?"

Akima was tempted to shrug him off, but she'd already done enough to isolate herself and hurt her chances of staying for one day.

"Yeah, I guess I'm alright. I just had a . . . disagreement with Zh-, with _Master_ Zhar."

"I heard about that. In fact, I think everybody's heard about that by now. Give it another couple of days and you'll be a legend. Not much exciting happens around here."

The speaker laughed, a deep, strong laugh of real amusement, and Akima turned away from the view to take in her pursuer.

He was tall, creeping closer to two meters, and at the tail end of the awkward gangliness of teenage years. And if the size of his hands crossed in front of him were any indication, he was going to be huge when he filled out. He leaned against the wall, imitating her, if the half-grin that emerged from beneath a mess of black hair was any indication.

"I'm Alek Squinquargesimus. Good luck remembering it. Most people call me Squint for short."

"Squinquargesimus . . . that sounds like something Quelii to me."

Alek's jaw actually dropped. "You've heard of my planet?"

Akima smiled. "Not quite. I was referring to the sector, not the planet. I had to memorize the sectors off the Hydian way and I remember that everything in the sector had way too many consonants for my taste."

Alek returned her smile with a grin. "Yeah, I get that a lot. It's a regular nightmare for Republic Immigration whenever we try to leave the planet. But what about you, where are you from?"

Akima's face fell as she thought about home. "I'm from . . . a little planet far, far away, beyond the edge of the Republic." Alek, sensing her mood, spoke a little softer. "Bad memories? Don't worry, you're not the only one. We all carry around bits of our past with us. But you know, when I need to be alone for a bit to think there's a spot I always go to. Just on the outer edge of the courtyard there's a blba tree that the grounds crew stripped all the thorns off of. I guess they thought watching a bird get impaled on it and eaten by the slugs would upset some of the younglings. Anyways, you can climb up in there and be completely hidden in the branches. Look, I've got to run to my next lesson, but it was nice to meet. What's your name?"

He held out a huge hand and Akima took it. "Akima. My name is Akima Mahe."


End file.
